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THE 



FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW, 



AND OTHER 



HISTORICAL ESSAYS 



BY THE LATE 

EARL STANHOPE. 



COLLECTED PROM THE 

QUARTERLY REVIEW AND FRASER'S MAGAZINE. 



LONDON: 

JOHN MUKKAY, ALBEMAKLE STEEET. 

1876. 

(All rights reserved,') 



Hi 



LONDON; 

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS 

STAMFORD STREET AND CHARING CROSS. 












CONTENTS 



PAGE 

1367. THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW 1 

1866. LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE 79 

1871. THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS 109 

1872. THE YEAR OF THE PASSION ... 139 

1873. HAROLD OF NORWAY 159 

1874. THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE 185 

1875. THE STATUE OF MEMNON 233 



NOTICE 



The Historical Essays which compose the following 
volume were written by the late Earl Stanhope 
between the years 1866 and 1874, having been 
contributed to the " Quarterly Beview," with the 
exception of one, from "Eraser's Magazine," which 
is included by the permission of Messrs. Longman. 
It is thought by the author's nearest relatives 
that they may prove of interest to the public. 

October, 1876. 



I. 
THE FEENCH EETKEAT FROM MOSCOW. 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 1 



WHEN Dr. Johnson composed his admirable poem 
on the Vanity of Human Wishes, in imitation 
of the no less admirable tenth Satire of Juvenal, — and 
we scarcely know to which of the two we should assign 
the palm, — we find him substituting with great felicity 
modern examples instead of those which Juvenal ad- 
duced. For Sejanus we have Wolsey ; for Hannibal, 
Charles XII. of Sweden ; for Servilia, Lady Yane. But 
when he came to the case of Xerxes, Dr. Johnson could 
remember no adequate parallel. Xerxes, therefore, is 
still the instance given in his poem, and it is the only 
one which he derives from ancient times. 

" With half mankind embattled at his side, 
Great Xerxes comes to seize the certain prey, 
And starves exhausted regions in his way. 

^ * 1. Souvenirs Militaires de 1804 a 1814. Par M. le Due de Fezensac, 
General de Division. (Journal de la Campagne de Russie, 1812, en 
douze chapitres.) Paris, 1863. 

2. Memoir es. Par L. F. J. Bausset, ancien Prefet du Palais Im- 
perial. 2 vols. Bruxelles, 1827. 

3. Ztineraire de Napoleon I. de Smorgoni a Paris. Extrait des 
Memoires du Baron Paid de Bourgoing. Paris, 1862. 

4. Ziehen des FeldmarscliaZls Grafen York von Wartenhurg. Von 
J. G. Droysen. 3 B'ande. Berlin, 1851. 



4 THE FEENCH EETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

* * * * «• * 

The insulted sea with humbler thought he gains, 
A single skiff to speed his flight remains ; 
The encumber'd oar scarce leaves the dreaded coast, 
Through purple "billows and a floating host." 

But had the lot of Johnson been cast later by some 
scores of years, with how noble a passage might not the 
retreat from Moscow have supplied him ! How striking 
the parallel between the two conquerors, each at the 
outset marching forward confident of victory, and at 
the head of many hundred thousand warriors, and each 
having at the close to escape almost alone, the one in 
a single skiff over the " insulted sea," the other in a 
peasant's sledge across the frozen plains ! 

The retreat from Moscow in 1812 is, indeed, a sub- 
ject of ever new and thrilling interest, Nowhere, 
perhaps, does modern history display, within a compass 
of seven or eight weeks, so large an amount of indi- 
vidual suffering and national loss. Nowhere does the 
reckless force of the elements appear more completely 
victorious over all the genius, all the strength, all the 
resources of man. And often as we have perused the 
various narratives of that terrible disaster, we find our- 
selves ever and anon recurring to it as some fresh 
contributions to its story come forth from time to 
time. Two years since we called attention, though but 
very briefly, to the corresponding entries in the auto- 
biography of Sir Kobert Wilson. We now propose to 
resume the subject, adverting more especially to some 
memoirs or fragments of memoirs that we owe to 
France. 



THE FKENCH EETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 5 

The judgment of the Duke of Wellington on this 
transaction is expressed in a short memorandum which 
he drew up in 1842, and which Lord Stanhope has 
published in his little volume of " Miscellanies." 
We will extract from it the following paragraphs : — 

"Napoleon had made no preparation for the military 
retreat which he would have to make if his diplomatic 
efforts should fail, which they did. We see that he was 
distressed for want of communications even before he 
thought of retreat; his hospitals were not supplied nor 
even taken care of, and were at last carried off; and when 
he commenced to make a real movement of retreat, he was 
involved in difficulties without number. The first basis 
of his operations was lost ; the new one not established ; 
and he was not strong enough to force his way to the only 
one which could have been practicable, and by the use of 
which he might have saved his army — by the sacrifice, 
however, of all those corps which were in the northern 
line of operations ; I mean the line through Kalouga, 
through the southern countries. But instead of that, he 
was forced to take his retreat by the line of the river 
Beresina, which was exhausted, and upon which he had 
made no preparations whatever. This is, in few words, 
the history of that disaster." 

But besides these faults of Napoleon which our 
great captain has here enumerated, there was cer- 
tainly another and still far more considerable error — 
we mean his protracted stay at Moscow. Flushed with 
the pride of conquest, he seems to have regarded the 
Bussian winter as though it might be, like the Bussian 
army, defied and overcome. Surely the near approach 
of that terrible season ought to have been ever before 



6 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

his eyes. With that prospect he should have placed 
no dependence on the uncertain hopes of peace, and 
should have remained at Moscow no longer than was 
absolutely necessary to rest and to re-forrn his troops. 

Let us see whether an examination of the dates 
does not fully bear out this criticism. On the 7th of 
September Napoleon gained the battle of La Moskowa, 
as the French have termed it, or of Borodino, according 
to its Kussian name — one of the hardest fought and 
bloodiest conflicts upon record in ancient or in modern 
times. On the 15th he made his entry into Moscow, 
and fixed his head-quarters at the Kremlin. On the 
very next day he left it again, driven forth by the 
conflagration which — we will here avoid the contro- 
versy as to its cause — had burst forth at once in 
various quarters of the city and enveloped the Kremlin 
with its lurid clouds. During three days, himself 
in the neighbouring chateau of Petrowskoi, and with 
his soldiers at their bivouacs around him, Napoleon 
might mournfully contemplate the dismal progress of 
the flames. At length, on the 19th, he was enabled to 
return to the citadel-palace. The conflagration had 
then almost ceased, but about four-fifths of the city 
were destroyed. The remaining houses, however, were 
sufficient to shelter the army, and there soon appeared 
means for its support. It is the custom in that country, 
owing to the length and severity of the winter, to lay 
in stores of provisions for several months, and thus the 
cellars of the burnt houses were found when laid open 
to contain large quantities of corn, of salted meat, of 
wine, and of brandy — nay, even of sugar and of tea. 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 7 

Thus the soldiers could at last obtain some refresh- 
ment, and repose after all their weary marches and 
their murderous battles. 

On the 4th of October, and not till then, Napoleon 
despatched one of his aides-de-camp, M. de Lauriston, 
with pacific overtures to General Kutusof, the Kussian 
commander-in-chief. Now, considering the advanced 
position of Napoleon's army, and the close approach of 
the Kussian winter, we hold it as incontrovertible that 
on this 4th of October not a single French soldier 
should have remained at Moscow. The march back 
towards Poland should have begun at latest by that day. 

The Kussian chiefs, on this point more far-sighted, 
as knowing better the extremity of cold that was near 
at hand, considered the gain of time as their para- 
mount object. On this principle General Kutusof 
received M. de Lauriston with all courtesy and seeming 
frankness. But he declared that he had no powers to 
sign an armistice, far less to conclude a treaty. It 
was necessary, he said, to refer the French overtures 
to the Emperor Alexander at Petersburg, and to 
Petersburg they were referred accordingly. Some ten 
or twelve days would be requisite, he added, before an 
answer could arrive ; and on M. de Lauriston's report, 
Napoleon determined to remain for this further period 
at Moscow. 

Napoleon, indeed, had from the first, in common 
phrase, " settled down," as though resolved at all 
events on a considerable stay. Thus, for example, he 
had given orders for a series of theatrical representa- 
tions, of which we learn some particulars from the 



8 THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

amusing memoir of M. de Bausset. This was the 
JPrefet du Palais — a sleek well-fed gentleman, as it 
becomes court officials to be. His proper post was 
at the Tuileries, but he had been commissioned by 
Maria Louisa to convey to Napoleon a full-length 
portrait of their son, and he had arrived at head- 
quarters on the very day before the Borodino battle. 
Napoleon had at once displayed to his assembled 
chiefs the portrait, as he hoped, of their future sove- 
reign, adding with much grace and dignity these 
words : — " Messieurs, si mon fits avait quinze ans rj croyez 
qiCil serait ici an milieu de tant de braves autrement 
qiien peinturer 

Subsequently M. de Bausset had attended the 
Emperor to Moscow, and he received from his 
Majesty the supreme direction of the intended the- 
atrical representations. He found there already 
established a clever directrice, Madame Bursay, and 
a few good actors and actresses. Rich dresses in 
abundance were supplied from the Moscow stores. 

" Les comediens Francais en tirerent des robes et des 
habits de velours, qu'ils arrangerent a leur taille, et sur 
lesquels ils appliquerent de larges galons d'or qui etaient 
en abondance dans ces magasins. Beellement ils etaient 
vetus avec une grande magnificence, mais leur detresse 
etait telle que quelques-unes de nos actrices sous ces belles 
robes de velours avaient a peine le linge necessaire ; du 
moins c'est ce que me disait Madame Bursay." 

But from this comic interlude (as Madame Bursay 
herself might have called it) we now revert to more 
serious scenes. It was found by Napoleon, after long 



THE FKENCH KETKEAT FKOM MOSCOW. 9 

and anxious suspense, that from Petersburg there came 
no acceptance of his overtures. The conqueror, dis- 
appointed in his hopes of peace, wavered yet for some 
time in his military plans. Finally his army, then 
still 100,000 strong, marched from Moscow on the 
19th of October, and Napoleon set out to rejoin it 
the next day. Even then, however, he did not re- 
linquish his hold of the city. He left Marshal 
Mortier with 10,000 men to garrison the Kremlin, 
and the secret instructions which the head of his 
staff wrote to the Intendant General (they bear date 
the 18th of October, and have been published by 
M. Thiers) contain these remarkable words : — "It being 
the Emperor's intention to return here, we shall keep 
the principal magazines of flour, of oats, and of 
brandy." 

But Napoleon did not long persevere in this rash 
design. On the evening of the 20th, only a few 
hours after leaving Moscow, he sent orders to Marshal 
Mortier of a directly opposite tenor. The marshal 
was now directed to blow up the Kremlin by means of 
mines already prepared, to evacuate the city, and 
to retire with his troops and with the column of sick 
and wounded along the Smolensk road. On the night 
of the 23rd, accordingly, the Kremlin was shattered, 
though not destroyed, by the desired explosion, and 
on the next morning the marshal began his retrogade 
march. Thus instead of the 4th it was the 24th of 
October, at the verge of the Kussian winter, when the 
last of the French troops took their departure from 
the Kussian capital. 



10 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

Meanwhile la Grande Armee, under Napoleon him- 
self, was by no means marching straight to Smolensk 
on its way to Poland. On the contrary, it was directing 
its course towards Kalouga, with a view to the occupa- 
tion of the southern provinces. Kutusof, however, was 
in its front. On the 24th one of the French corjos 
d' armee gained a victory over a corresponding Kussian 
division at Malo-Jaroslawetz. But the French had 
lost 4000 killed in that hard-fought combat, and it 
was little compensation to them to boast or to believe 
that the Kussians had lost 6000. The Russians in the 
heart of their country were daily receiving reinforce- 
ments, while on the invaders, at that enormous distance 
even from the Polish frontier, the loss of every soldier 
told. 

This last consideration could not fail to weigh 
heavy on Napoleon, when next day he found the whole 
army of Kutusof before him, placed in a strong 
position, and saw that he could only press forward to 
Kalouga by first giving battle. He might probably 
win that battle, but it would be, as at La Moskowa, 
after a desperate resistance and with a grievous loss 
of slain. Worse still, it might leave him with some 
8000 or 10,000 wounded, whom he had no means of 
transporting, and whom when he moved onward he 
must leave to perish where they fell. 

More than ever perplexed, Napoleon in the course 
of the 25th entered a barn in the little village of 
Gorodnia, and there held a council of his chiefs. All 
of them concurred in thinking an advance upon 
Kalouga inexpedient. Davoust alone advised an in- 



THE FBENCH EETREAT FKOM MOSCOW. 11 

termediate course through a not yet exhausted country. 
The others were for rejoining the main road from 
Moscow to Smolensk, and marching back to Poland 
by the shortest route. 

The reason of Napoleon was convinced, but his 
pride rebelled. Retreat was a new word to him, ever 
since at least he raised the siege of Acre. Still un- 
decided, he turned round, and with one of his familiar 
gestures seized by the ear one of his bravest officers, 
General Mouton Comfe de Lobau, the same who sub- 
sequently rose to political distinction in the reign of 
Louis Philippe. M. Thiers, who had sat with him in 
council and who knew him well, describes him as soldat 
rude et Jin, ayant Vadresse de se taire et de ne parler 
qita propos. Napoleon, still with the general's ear in 
hand, asked him what he thought. The other chiefs, 
according to the custom at that period of the Imperial 
sway, had given their opinions with abundance of 
courtly phrases and deferential circumlocution. But 
Lobau, seeing the moment opportune, answered en 
termes incisifs, "I think that we ought to leave at 
once, and by the shortest route, a country where we 
have remained too long ! " 

This reply, and the tone of it, produced a strong 
effect on Napoleon. Nevertheless, as though enough 
of time had not been lost already, he put off his de- 
cision till the morrow. On the ensuing day, therefore, 
he consulted his officers again, and, finding them as 
decided as ever for the Smolensk road, he issued orders 
that the troops should next morning, the 27th, begin 
their march in that direction. Thus it was not till 



12 THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

that day, the 27th of October, that at the Grande 
Armee a movement of decided retreat commenced. 

It is at this point that we begin to derive many 
particulars from the book which we have named at the 
beginning of this article. M. de Fezensac, many years 
subsequently raised to the rank of duke, was, in 1812, 
a young officer of great spirit and skill. He was also 
son-in-law of Clarke, Duke de Feltre, at that time 
Minister of War. Both these circumstances may be 
thought to have contributed in equal degrees to his 
rapid advancement. When the colonel of bis regi- 
ment (the 4th of the line) fell in the bloody battle of 
La Moskowa, Fezensac was named to the vacant post. 
His regiment, as we shall see, was in the rear-guard — 
the post of by far the greatest danger and the greatest 
suffering — in the worst days of the disastrous retreat ; 
and the journal which he has written of that period is 
no less striking than authentic. It first appeared at 
Paris in a separate form, but is now embodied in the 
author's " Souvenirs Militaires " — the whole of which 
we commend, as they well deserve, to the attention of 
our readers. 

Mojaisk — a small town on the direct road from 
Moscow to Smolensk — was the point to which the 
Grande Armee was directing its course from Malo- 
Jaroslawetz. That point would be reached in three 
days, which, with the eight already passed since 
Moscow, made eleven. But it might have been 
reached in four by the straight line from Moscow. 
Thus, then, an entire week would have been employed 
in unavailing marches. Nor was it merely the loss of 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 13 

time — time trebly precious at that season. The con- 
sumption of provisions had also to be considered. 
When the Grande Armee had left Moscow, several of 
its chiefs, even Napoleon himself, stood aghast at 
the large amount of its impedimenta belli. Cars and 
carriages, clroskis and berlines, and every other kind 
of vehicle, bore along, besides the sick and wounded 
and the numerous officers' servants, a train of women 
and young children — French residents or visitors at 
Moscow, who were escaping from the apprehended 
vengeance of the Kussians — and among them that 
company of actors and actresses of which we have 
already given some account. Piled on the cars were 
seen the munitions of war and the spoils of plunder, 
extending even to articles of furniture, and together 
with them huge bags filled with divers kinds of food. 
There was also an immense train, wholly out of 
proportion to the diminished army, of 600 pieces 
of artillery. All this had to be drawn along by 
exhausted horses — horses already more than half worn 
out with hard marches and insufficient food. And to 
this vast convoy, as it had come from Moscow, there 
were now to be added, as best they might, some two 
thousand wounded, the result of the action at Malo- 
Jaroslawetz. 

The country around them was so poor, and so 
thinly peopled, as to afford little in the way of fresh 
supplies. Thus of the provisions brought from Mos- 
cow great part had been consumed in the week already 
passed, and it was calculated that scarce any would 
remain by the time the army reached Mojaisk. More- 



14 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

over, no sooner had the army commenced its retreat 
than clouds of' Cossacks began to hover round it with 
loud huzzas. They cut off all stragglers ; they inter- 
cepted all supplies. By these means the French, of 
the rear-guard especially, were reduced to a terrible 
strait. If they kept close to their ranks, they could 
obtain no food for themselves, no forage for their 
horses. If, on the other hand, they wandered far to 
the right or left, unless in large bands, each single 
soldier was sure to have the lance of a Cossack at his 
breast. 

Even while the provisions brought from Moscow 
lasted, much suffering prevailed. They were most 
unequally distributed, says M. de Fezensac, like all 
things which proceed from pillage. One regiment had 
still some oxen for slaughter, but no bread ; another 
regiment had flour, but wanted meat. Even in the 
same regiment there were similar diversities. Some 
companies were half-starved and others lived in abun- 
dance. The chiefs enjoined an equal partition, but 
they were no match for individual selfishness ; all 
means were used to blind their vigilance and elude 
their commands. 

As if to add to the difficulties of this retreat, 
Napoleon, in his irritation against the Russians, issued 
a cruel order, which the French writers themselves 
have been forward to condemn. He directed that all 
the houses on the line of march should be burned 
down. Marshal Davoust, who commanded the rear- 
guard, and who on this occasion, as on every other, 
showed himself a consummate general, carried out 



THE FRENCH EETKEAT FROM MOSCOW. 15 

these instructions with pitiless rigour. Detachments 
sent out to the right and left, as far as the pursuit 
of the enemy allowed them, set on fire the chateaux 
and the villages. The result was mainly to drive the 
Kussian peasants to despair, and to aggravate the fate 
of the wounded and the prisoners who fell into their 
hands. 

" The sight of this destruction," so writes M. de 
Fezensac, " was hy no means the most painful of those 
which met our eyes. There was marching in front of us 
a column of Eussian prisoners guarded by troops from the 
Confederation of the Khine. Nothing was given out to 
these poor men for food except a little horseflesh ; and the 
soldiers of the guard dashed out the brains of those who 
could march no further. We found their corpses lying on 
"our route, and all with shattered heads. In justice to the 
soldiers of my regiment I must declare that the sight filled 
them with indignation. Moreover, they saw to what 
cruel reprisals this barbarous system might expose them." 

Under these adverse circumstances we need not be 
surprised to find M. de Fezensac assuring us that, even 
in the first days, this retreat bore many symptoms of a 
rout. The divisions in the front pressed forward every 
morning, leaving their baggage to follow as it could ; 
and thus the rear-guard had to protect and defend the 
whole of an enormous convoy. Bridges, which broke 
down under the weight, had to be repaired; obstacles, 
as they gathered on a narrow road, had to be cleared 
away. It had been designed that the cavalry, under 
General Grouchy, should support this covering body, 
but its horses were so weak for want of forage, and its 



16 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

numbers dwindled so fast, that it could render no 
active service, and Marshal Davoust sent it forward, 
maintaining the rear with his infantry alone. He 
had reason to remember the retort which General 
Nansouty had made to the King of Naples (Murat), 
when, even in the advance upon Moscow, Murat com- 
plained of some remissness in a cavalry charge — " Our 
horses have no patriotism. The soldiers fight without 
bread, but the horses insist on oats ! " 

Nor was it the cavalry only. Since the draught- 
horses also began to fail, it became necessary, hour 
by hour, to blow up tumbrils of artillery, or to 
abandon carts piled with baggage and with wounded. 
The soldiers of the rear-guard, who were themselves 
struck down, had a grievous fate before them, since 
in their position a wound was almost equivalent to 
death. It was heart-rending to hear these poor men, 
with loud cries, entreat their comrades at least to 
despatch them as they fell, rather than leave them 
to linger and perish, without aid, or until run through 
by a Cossack lance. 

Napoleon himself took no heed of their calamities. 
Profoundly mortified at the compelled retreat, which 
there was no longer any side-march to conceal, he 
journeyed in front, surrounded by his guard, and shut 
up in his landau, with the chief of his staff, Marshal 
Berthier. He gave no personal impulse nor direction 
to the march, and contented himself with blaming 
Davoust, who, he said, was over-methodical and moved 
too slowly. 

Amidst these growing difficulties three toilsome 



THE FRENCH RETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 17 

marches brought the Grande Armee to Mojaisk. Thus 
far the days had continued fine, though the nights had 
begun to be frosty ; and on their way the troops were 
rejoined by Mortier's division from Moscow. Mojaisk 
itself could yield them no resources. That ill-fated 
little town had been burned, and its inhabitants had 
fled. The troops, therefore, bivouacked in the open 
air, skirting, as they passed, the plain of Borodino. 
Several officers rode over to revisit the field of battle ; 
they found it, indeed, a ghastly scene. In that thinly 
peopled region, laid waste alternately by friend and 
foe, scarce any peasants had remained to fulfil the 
duty of interment, and the slain of both armies were 
still lying where they had fallen, half-decomposed by 
the lapse of time, or half-devoured by the birds and 
beasts of prey. Not less dismal than the scene itself 
were the reflections which it could not fail to inspire. 
Here, then, the French army, by its own account, 
had lost thirty thousand men in killed and wounded. 
Here, then, they had perished — and all for what 
result ? Only that their surviving comrades, after 
a few weeks at Moscow, should march back as they 
came ! Only for present grief and impending ruin ! 

At Krasnoi, where one corps a? armee encamped the 
same night, the spectacle was still more afflicting. It 
was a large monastic establishment, which the French 
had converted into an hospital after their Borodino 
battle. But such was the improvidence of their chiefs 
as they marched onwards to Moscow, that, as M. de 
Fezensac assures us, they had left the sick without 
medicines, nay, even without food. It was with great 

c 



18 THE FEENCH EETREAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

difficulty that some scanty supplies were from time 
to time gleaned in the neighbourhood, and that several 
convoys of convalescents were despatched to Smolensk. 
But many more had perished, and many yet remained. 
" I rescued three men belonging to my own regiment," 
says Fezensac, " but I found it very hard to make my 
way to them in their neglected state, since not only 
the staircases and the corridors, but even the centre 
of the rooms, were piled up with every kind of ordure." 

Energetic orders were now issued by Napoleon 
for the transport of all among those who could bear 
removal, being about fifteen hundred in number. It 
was directed that every baggage-cart, and even every 
private carriage from Moscow, should take up one 
at least of these disabled men. By such means their 
removal was in the first instance secured, but the 
conveyances in question were already overloaded, 
while the strength of the draught-horses had rapidly 
declined. 

Smolensk was now looked to by the troops as the 
term of all their sufferings and losses. There it was 
thought they would find ample supplies; there they 
might expect to take up winter quarters. But from 
Smolensk they were still divided by eight or nine 
laborious marches, through a country almost destitute 
of resources, as having been laid waste by themselves 
in their advance. Nor was the Eussian army at this 
time inactive. Marshal Kutusof had in the first 
instance been deceived as to the direction of the 
French retreat, but he was now hanging on the flank 
of the invaders by a side-march of his own to Medouin ; 



THE FKENCH RETflEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 19 

and lie had, besides the Cossacks, despatched a strong 
division under one of his best officers, General 
Miloradowitch, which was well provided with artillery, 
and was prepared to engage the French rear-guard day 
by clay. 

It was under such adverse circumstances that the 
first corps d'armee, which still formed the French rear, 
resumed its harassing duties. On the 31st of October 
it marched half-way to Ghjat, on the 1st of November 
to Ghjat itself. Next morning it was again in motion 
towards Smolensk. Marshal Davoust, destitute of 
cavalry, but confiding in his veteran foot soldiers, 
continued to show, as they did, a truly heroic firmness. 
Each day they had to repel the impetuous charges 
of Miloradowitz, each evening to endure the privation 
of rest and of food. On the 1st there was a more 
especial accumulation at the passage of a small but 
slimy river and morass, where the bridge had broken 
down. It was necessary for the troops to maintain 
the conflict while the sappers re-established the bridge. 
All that night Marshal Davoust, with his generals and 
the soldiers of Gerard's division, remained on foot, 
without eating or sleeping, to protect the rear of the 
retreating army. 

Next day there was a more general engagement, 
in which the corps oVarmee of Prince Eugene and of 
Marshal Ney also took part. The French remained 
victorious, but with the loss of fifteen or eighteen 
hundred of their best veterans. And on the evening 
of that well-fought day what refreshment was in store 
for them after all their toils and dangers ? Let 



20 THE FKENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

M. Thiers here reply : — " When they entered the town 
of Wiasma they found no means of subsistence. The 
guard and the corps which passed first had devoured 
everything. Of the provisions brought from Moscow, 
there was nothing left. In a cold and dark night 
these exhausted men cast themselves down at the edge 
of the fir forests ; they lit large fires, and they roasted 
some horseflesh in the blaze." 

Moreover, there had now begun to be in the midst 
of themselves — and it continued to increase through 
the retreat — a mingled mass of disbanded men; cavalry 
soldiers who had lost their horses, infantry soldiers 
who had flung away their muskets, men from almost 
every service and almost every country, now rendered 
desperate and callous by famine. Their sole remaining 
care was to provide by any means for their personal 
safety, and, far from continuing to protect the rear- 
guard, they had themselves to be protected by it. 

Thus beset and close pressed, the First Corps, which 
had 72,000 men under arms when it crossed the 
Memen, which had still 28,000 when it left Moscow, 
had dwindled to 15,000. The other corps were also 
much reduced, though not as yet in the same propor- 
tion. It was obvious that the army was now drawing 
along three or four times more cannon than, with its 
diminished numbers, it could ever use in action ; and 
Marshal Davoust applied to the Emperor for permis- 
sion to leave behind the superfluous pieces of artillery, 
in proportion as the horses failed. But this the pride 
of Napoleon forbade — by no means the only instance 
in which his indomitable spirit proved injurious to the 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 21 

welfare, nay, even to the preservation of his troops. 
Instead of cannon, therefore, the baggage-carts with 
the sick and wounded had to be relinquished hour 
after hour, while the tumbrils of ammunition more and 
more frequently had to be blown into the air. 

Napoleon himself saw nothing at this time of the 
real difficulties of the retreat. Eemaining a day's 
march in advance, in the midst of his Guard, he was 
there for the most part, as M. Thiers describes him, 
seated in his carriage, entre Bertliier consterne et Murat 
eteint. Sometimes he passed whole hours without 
uttering a word, absorbed in his own painful thoughts ; 
and he commonly replied to the various representations 
of Marshal Davoust by a general order to march more 
rapidly. He persisted, says M. Thiers, in finding fault 
with the rear-guard, instead of going himself to direct 
its operations. 

It was partly, then, as dissatisfied, however un- 
reasonably, with the conduct of the First Corps, and 
partly as taking into account its exhausted state, that 
the Emperor now determined to withdraw it into the 
main body of his forces, committing the defence of 
the rear in its place to the Third Corps, under Marshal 
Ney. In that corps the fourth regiment of the line, 
commanded by Fezensac, came to occupy the post of 
the greatest danger and difficulty as the very last of 
the rear-guard. 

This was on the 4th of November. 

" Before the break of day next morning," says Fezen- 
sac, " the Third Corps was called to arms, and prepared to 
march. At that time all the soldiers who had disbanded 



22 THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

left their bivouacs, and came to join us. Those among 
them who were sick or wounded lingered near the fires, 
imploring us not to leave them in the enemy's hands. We 
had no means of transport for them, and we were obliged 
to pretend not to hear the wailings of those we were 
unable to relieve. As for the troop of wretches who had 
deserted their standards, although still able to bear arms, 
I ordered them to be repulsed with the butt-ends of our 
muskets ; and I forewarned them that, in the event of the 
enemy's attack, I would have them fired upon if they 
caused us the smallest obstruction." 

On that same day, the 5th, Napoleon, with the 
vanguard, reached the small town of Dorogobuje. 
There he was assailed by cares of a different kind. 
He received despatches from Paris announcing the 
strange conspiracy of Malet — how an officer in prison 
could escape one night from his place of detention, 
could succeed in all the preliminary steps of revolu- 
tion, could seize in their beds both General Savary, 
the Minister of Police, and General Hulin, the com- 
mandairt of the city, and could seem on the point of 
raising the flag of a new republic. " Mais quoi ! " 
exclaimed Napoleon several times after he had heard 
this news ; " on ne songeait done pas a mon fits, a ma 
femme, aux institutions de V Empire I " And after each 
exclamation he relapsed again, says M. Thiers, into 
his painful thoughts, reflected and declared in his 
moody countenance. 

The receipt of the same intelligence a few days 
later by some of the Emperor's suite is very graphic- 
ally told by M. de Bausset. His memoirs, indeed, 
display a curious contrast to all others of the same 



THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 23 

place or period, coming forth with flashes of merriment 
in the midst of the darkest gloom. He informs us 
that on the morning of the 8th, still two marches from 
Smolensk, he found that during the night three of his 
carriage-horses had. been stolen, and, as he supposed, 
already eaten by the soldiers. He bought some others 
to supply their place, but this operation delayed him, 
and he did not rejoin head-quarters till the most 
interesting moments of the day were passed. 

" Les officiers de la Maison Imperiale achevaient de diner. 
Je m'etais assis, et me disposals a reparer le temps perdu, 
lorsque le Grand Marechal (Duroc, Due de Frioul), qui 
m'avait fait placer pres de lui, me parla des nouvelles que 
l'estafette venait d'apporter. Mais la politique ne m'occupait 
guere. II etait question de la conspiration de Malet, de 
l'arrestation du Ministre de la Police et du Prefet de Police. 
Je croyais que le Grand Marechal inventait ces nouvelles 
pour donner le change a la faim qui me consumait, car 
j'etais encore a jeun a sept heures du soir. Je lui repondis 
en riant que le tonnerre tombat-il a cote de nioi, je ne 
perdrais pas un seul instant pour me dedommager de la 
diete que j'avais subie toute la journee." 

M. de Bausset owns, however, that when the news- 
papers from Paris were brought, and he saw the true 
state of the case, the mouthfuls began to stick in his 
throat. 

We may add that M. de Bausset, as (in every sense) 
a prominent member of the Imperial household, ap- 
pears to have been well cared for, even in the worst 
clays of the retreat. Scarcely ever did he fail to find 
a corner at some Imperial table, or a seat at some 
Imperial traineau. By such means he could resist 



24 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

even a fit of the gout, which at this period most 
inopportunely assailed him. Thus he was enabled to 
return to the Tuileries in good case ; and when two 
days afterwards he appeared at the Imperial levee— 

"L'Empereur me fit beaucoup de questions sur la 
maniere dont j'avais quitte l'armee, et me dit, en souriant 
avec amertume, que j'etais probablement le seul qui n'eut 
pas maigri dans cette longue retraite." 

Meanwhile, the French corps d'armee, front and rear, 
were eagerly pressing forward to Smolensk. They 
had, as we have seen, suffered much from privations 
of food and of rest, from the burned-out peasantry, and 
the ever-vigilant Cossacks. But the worst of their 
enemies was still to come. On the 4th of November 
there fell the first flakes of snow. On the 5th their 
quantity augmented. On the 6th they grew to a 
storm, and the ground assumed for the season its 
winter robe of white. Sir Kobert Wilson, then at the 
Kussian head-quarters, describes as having first arisen 
on the 6th " that razor-cutting wind which hardened 
the snow, and made it sparkle as it fell like small 
diamonds, whilst the air, under the effect of its con- 
tracting action, was filled with a continual ringing 
sound ; and the atmosphere seemed to be rarefied till 
it became quite brisk and brittle." 

The sufferings of the French soldiers, long-tried 
and exhausted as they were, now became well-nigh 
unendurable. 

" At a late hour of the 7th," says M. de Fezensac, " we 
reached the open plain in front of Dorogobuje. It was by 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 25 

far the coldest night that we had felt as yet ; the snow was 
falling thickly, and the violence of the wind was snch that 
no light conld be kindled : besides that, the heather amidst 
which we lay would have afforded us but scanty materials 
for bivouac fires." 

In this march, as in every other during this part 
of the retreat, Marshal Ney had set his troops the 
most gallant example : always among the hindmost, 
here the post of danger ; often with a soldier's musket 
in his hand; and not only, like Marshal Davoust, 
unshaken in firmness, but unlike him, ever cheerful, 
light-hearted, and serene. Next morning, with the 
aid of another corps d'armee, he endeavoured to hold 
Dorogobuje for the day with the rear-guard, so as to 
allow the corps in advance some time to save their 
artillery and baggage. But he found himself sharply 
assailed by the infantry of Miloradowitch. The enemy 
took the bridge across the Dnieper, and forced another 
post of Ney in front of the church. The French, after 
their night without food or fire, had to maintain the 
conflict knee-deep in the snow. By a bold charge 
they recovered the lost posts, but could not maintain 
them, and found it necessary to continue their retreat 
before it was cut off by the Russians. 

With all this, the long-enduring soldiers of Napo- 
leon, for the most part, did not fail in firmness, did 
not fail in patience, did not fail in attachment to their 
chief. Sir Robert Wilson says of the French, whom 
he saw as captives, that they could not be induced by 
any temptations, by any threats, by any privations, 
to cast reproach on their Emperor as the cause of their 



26 THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

misfortunes and sufferings. It was "the chance of war," 
" unavoidable difficulties," and " destiny," but " not the 
fault of Napoleon." "They famished," adds Sir Kobert, 
" dying of hunger, refusing food rather than utter an 
injurious word against their chief to indulge and 
humour vindictive inquirers." 

But how terrible the fate of these brave captives, 
as Sir Kobert Wilson proceeds to relate it ! 

"All prisoners were immediately and invariably 
stripped stark naked and marched in columns in that 
state, or turned adrift to be the sport and the victims of 
the peasantry, who would not always let them, as they 
sought to do, point and hold the muzzles of the guns 
against their own heads or hearts to terminate their suffer- 
ings in the most certain and expeditious manner ; for the 
peasantry thought that this mitigation of torture would be 
an offence against the avenging God of Eussia, and deprive 
them of His further protection." 

Sir Kobert Wilson proceeds to give some particular 
instances, more lifelike and appalling perhaps than can 
be any general description, however clear and precise. 
One day, as he was riding forward with General Milo- 
radowitch and his staff on the high-road, about a mile 
from Wiasma, they found a crowd of peasant-women, 
with sticks in their hands, hopping round a felled 
pine-tree, on each side of which lay about sixty naked 
prisoners prostrate, but with their heads on the tree, 
which these furies were striking in accompaniment to 
a national air or song, yelled by them in concert, while 
several hundred armed peasants were quietly looking 
on as guardians of the direful orgies. When the 



THE FKENCH EETREAT FEOM MOSCOW. 27 

cavalcade approached, the sufferers uttered piercing 
shrieks, and kept incessantly crying, " La mort, la 
mort, la mort ! " 

Another afternoon, when Sir Kobert was on the 
march with General Benin gsen, they fell in with a 
column of 700 naked prisoners under a Cossack escort. 
This column, according to the certificate given on 
starting, had consisted of 1250 men, and the com- 
mandant stated that he had twice renewed it, as the 
original party dropped off, from the prisoners he col- 
lected en route, and that he was then about completing 
his number again. 

The meeting with this last miserable convoy was 
marked by one strange act of cold-blooded ferocity 
which Sir Kobert has related. He tells it of a Eussian 
officer " of high titular rank," without mentioning the 
name, but from a note preserved among his papers we 
learn that it was no other than the heir presumptive 
to the Crown, the Grand Duke Constantine. Sir 
Kobert says that in this group of naked prisoners was 
a young man who kept a little aloof from the main 
band, and who attracted notice by his superior ap- 
pearance. The Grand Duke, after entering into some 
conversation with him about his country, rank, and 
capture, asked him if he did not, under present cir- 
cumstances, wish for death ? " Yes," said the unhappy 
man, " I do, if I cannot be rescued, for I know I must 
in a few hours perish by hunger or by the Cossack 
lance, as I have seen so many hundreds of my com- 
rades do before me. There are those in France who 
will lament my fate ; and for their sake I should wish 



28 THE FRENCH RETREAT EROM MOSCOW. 

to return. But if that be impossible, the sooner this 
ignominy and suffering are over the better." To this 
the Grand Duke calmly answered that from the bottom 
of his heart he pitied the other's fate, but that aid for 
his preservation was impossible ; if, however, he really 
wished to die at once and would lie down on his back, 
he, the Grand Duke, to give proof of the interest he 
took in him, would himself inflict the death-blow on 
his throat ! 

General Beningsen was then at some little distance 
in front, but Sir Kobert Wilson, who had stopped to* 
hear the conversation, ventured to remonstrate with his 
Imperial Highness on the very peculiar proof of interest 
which he offered to give, urging the absolute necessity 
of saving the unfortunate French officer, after having 
excited hopes by engaging in a discourse with him. 
Sir Kobert found, however, that the Grand Duke had 
no inclination to relinquish his first idea, upon which 
he eagerly spurred forward to overtake and bring back 
General Beningsen. But, happening to turn round 
before he could reach the general, he saw his Imperial 
Highness, who had dismounted, strike with his sabre 
a blow at the French officer that nearly severed the 
head from the body. Nor, adds Sir Kobert, could 
the Grand Duke ever afterwards be made to under- 
stand that he had done a reprehensible thing. He 
defended it by the motive and by the relief which he 
had afforded to the sufferer, there being no means to 
save him, and, if there had been, no man daring to 
employ them. 

Such was an early and no doubt sufficient token of 



THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 29 

that inborn ferocity of temper which, many years after- 
wards Constantine more clearly brought to light as 
Governor of Poland, and which rendered necessary even 
to his own perception his resignation of his hereditary 
risrhts as eventual successor to the throne. 

Far different, nay, directly opposite, were the senti- 
ments of Alexander. When he received accounts from 
General Wilson and others of the frequent atrocities 
and various modes of torture practised by the peasantry, 
the Emperor at once by an express courier transmitted 
an order forbidding all such acts under the severest 
threats of his displeasure and punishment. At the 
same time he directed that a ducat in gold should 
be paid for every prisoner delivered up by peasant or 
soldier to any civil authority for safe custody. The 
decree was most humane, and well worthy Alexander's 
just renown ; yet in too many cases it remained only 
a dead letter. The conductors, as Sir Kobert in- 
forms us, were frequently offered a higher price to 
surrender their charge as victims to private vengeance. 
Nor could the rage of the peasantry be at once re- 
strained. How, indeed, expect mercy from men whose 
wives and children were at that time wandering help- 
less on the snow, their houses burned down perhaps by 
these very soldiers in consequence of Napoleon's com- 
mand ? Then it was that the utter impolicy of that 
command to set on fire all the villages in the line of 
retreat, its impolicy as well as its signal cruelty, grew 
manifest to all. 

In this tremendous retreat more compassion was 
occasionally shown by dogs than by men : — 



30 THE FRENCH EETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 

" Innumerable dogs," thus writes Sir Kobert Wilson, 
" crouched on the bodies of their former masters, looking 
in their faces, and howling their hunger and loss. Others, 
on the contrary, were tearing the still living flesh from 
the feet, hands, and limbs of still living wretches who 
could not defend themselves, and whose torment was still 
greater as in many cases their consciousness and senses 
remained unimpaired." 

One particular instance is added. At the com- 
mencement of the retreat, at a village near Serine-, a 
detachment of fifty French had been surprised. The 
peasants resolved to bury them alive in a pit ; a drum- 
mer-boy bravely led the devoted party and sprang 
into the grave. A dog belonging to one of the 
victims could not be secured. Every day this dog 
went to the neighbouring camp and came back with a 
bit of food in his mouth to sit and moan over the 
newly turned earth. It was a fortnight before he could 
be killed by the peasants, who were afraid of discovery. 
" They showed me the spot," adds Wilson, " and re- 
lated the occurrence with exultation, as though they 
had performed a meritorious deed." 

Ghastly, most ghastly, must have been the line of 
the French retreat, as the notes of Sir Kobert describe 
it:— 

"From that time the road was strewed with guns, 
tumbrils, equipages, men, and horses; and no foraging 
parties could quit the high-road in search of provisions ; 
and consequently the debility hourly increased. Thousands 
of horses soon lay groaning on the route, with great pieces 
of flesh cut off their necks and most fleshy parts by the 
passing soldiery for food; whilst thousands of naked 



THE FRENCH EETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 31 

wretches were wandering like spectres who seemed to have 
no sight or sense, and who only kept reeling on till frost, 
famine, or the Cossack lance pnt an end to their power of 
motion. In that wretched state no nourishment could 
have saved them. There were continual instances, even 
amongst the Eussians, of their lying down, dozing, and 
dying within a quarter of an hour after a little bread had 
been supplied." 

We should observe that it was not only from want 
of forage or from fatigue that such numbers of French 
horses fell. There was also another cause pointed out 
with exultation by their enemy. Thus, on the morning 
of the 5th, on coming to the first bivouac which the 
French had left, some Cossacks in attendance on Sir 
Robert Wilson, seeing a gun and several tumbrils at 
the bottom of a ravine with the horses lying on the 
ground, dismounted, and, taking up the feet of several, 
hallooed, and ran to kiss Sir Robert's knees and horse, 
making all the while fantastic gestures like crazy men. 
When their ecstasy had a little subsided, they pointed 
to the horses' shoes, and said, "God has made Napoleon 
forget that there is a winter in our country. In spite of 
Kutusof, the enemy's bones shall remain in Russia." 

It was soon ascertained that the needful precaution 
of roughing had been neglected with all the horses of 
the Imperial army, except only those of the Polish 
corps and also the Emperor's own, which Coulaincourt 
(Duke de Vicence), under whom was that department, 
had, with due foresight, always kept rough-shod accord- 
ing to the Russian usage. 

Such is the positive statement of Sir Robert Wilson, 



32 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

who was upon the spot at the time. But it is only just 
to observe that there are some remarks of the Duke of 
Wellington which point to an exactly opposite con- 
clusion : — 

" Then we are told that the loss was occasioned because 
the French horses were not rough-shod. . . . But the 
excuse is not founded in fact. Those who have followed 
a French army well know that their horses are always 
rough-shod. It is the common mode of shoeing horses in 
France ; and in this respect a French army ought to, and 
would, have suffered less inconvenience tham any army 
that ever was assembled." 

As though these manifold causes of distress did not 
suffice, the French soldiers at this period also suffered 
severely from the want of warm clothes. When they 
had marched forward in the months of July and August 
the weather was extremely hot. They were glad to 
leave stored up in Poland their heavy capotes and 
their woollen trowsers. They expected that the care 
of their chiefs would provide them with winter neces- 
saries before the winter came. In that expectation they 
found themselves deceived. No stores of comfortable 
clothing met them on their homeward march. They 
had found, indeed, fur-dresses among the spoils of the 
burning capital, but had for the most part sold them 
to their officers. Either therefore they had to wrap 
themselves in any garments, sometimes even female 
garments, which they happened to have brought from 
Moscow, or else to endure as best they might the 
growing severity of the cold. On the 9th of Novem- 
ber Eeaumur's thermometer fell in that region to 



THE FEENCH KETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 33 

12° below zero, equivalent to 5° of Fahrenheit, and on 
the 12th to 17°, or according to Fahrenheit 6°, below 
zero. "Many men," adds Sir Robert Wilson, "were 
frozen to death, and great numbers had their limbs, 
noses, and cheeks frozen." 

With two such facts before us — the neglect to 
rough-shoe the horses except those for the Emperor's 
use, and the omission of effective measures for the 
despatch in due time of the winter clothing — we must 
own ourselves unable to concur in the panegyrics on 
the Emperor's far-sighted policy, his close attention to 
details, and his provident care for his army, which are 
poured forth by his indiscrimate admirers even as to 
this campaign. That Napoleon possessed these quali- 
ties in a most eminent degree, we should be among the 
last persons to deny. But we must be allowed to think 
that he by no means evinced these qualities in the 
orders for his Moscow retreat. It would seem as if a 
long period of splendid successes and of uncontrolled 
authority had a tendency to perplex and unsettle even 
the highest faculties of mind. How else explain that 
Napoleon showed so little prescience of the coming 
Russian winter, as though by ignoring its approach 
that approach would be really delayed ? 

We may observe that the French eye-witnesses 
describe the horrors of this retreat in quite as vivid 
terms as either the Russians or the English. Thus 
speaks M. de Fezensac of the period between Dorogo- 
puje and Smolensk : — 

" Since we were at the rear-guard, all the men who left 
the road in quest of food fell into the hands of the enemy, 

D 



34 THE FKENCH EETREAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

whose pursuit grew day by day more active. The severity 
of the cold came to augment our difficulties and sufferings. 
Many soldiers, exhausted with fatigue, flung away their 
muskets to walk singly. They halted wherever they 
found a piece of wood for burning, by which they could 
cook a morsel of horseflesh or a handful of flour, if, indeed, 
none of their comrades came and snatched from them 
these their sole remaining resources. For our soldiers, 
dying of hunger, took by force from all the disbanded men 
whatever provisions they bore, and the latter might deem 
themselves fortunate if they were not also despoiled of 
their clothes. Thus, after having laid waste this entire 
region, we were now reduced to destroy each other; and 
this extreme course had become a necessity of war. It 
was requisite at all hazards to preserve those soldiers who 
had continued true to their standard, and who alone at 
the rear-guard sustained the enemy's assaults. As for 
those disbanded men who no longer belonged to any 
regiment, and could no longer render any service, they 
had no claim at all on our pity. Under these circum- 
stances, the road along which we journeyed bore the 
likeness of a field of battle. Soldiers who had resisted 
cold and fatigue succumbed to the torments of hunger; 
others who had kept a few provisions found themselves 
too much enfeebled to follow the march, and remained in 
the enemy's power. Some had their limbs frozen, and 
expired where they had dropped down on the snow; 
others fell asleep in villages, and perished in the flames 
which their own companions had kindled. I saw at 
Dorogobuje a soldier of my regiment upon whom destitu- 
tion had produced the same effects as drunkenness; he 
was close to us without knowing us again ; he asked us 
where was his regiment ; he mentioned by name other 
soldiers, and spoke to them as though to strangers ; his i 
gait was tottering, and his looks were wild. He dis- • 
appeared at the beginning of the action, and I never saw • 



THE FEENCH KETREAT FEOM MOSCOW. 35 

him again. Several cantinieres and soldiers' wives belong- 
ing to the regiments which preceded us in the line of 
march were in our midst. Several of these poor women 
had a young child to carry; and notwithstanding the 
egotism then so prevalent among us, every one was eager 
in rendering them his aid. Our drum-major bore for a 
long time an infant in his arms. I also during several 
days gave places to a woman and her baby in a small cart 
that I still had ; but what could such feeble succour avail 
against so many sufferings, or could we alleviate the 
calamities which we were condemned to share ? " 

Instances like these of tenderness and kindly 
feeling appear, we think, doubly touching, doubly 
admirable, in the midst of such wide-spread and 
terrible woe. In a later passage of his journal, 
Fezensac commemorates the fate of an officer of his 
regiment who had married in France before the com- 
mencement of this fatal campaign. Worn out with 
fatigue, he was found dead one morning by the side 
of a bivouac fire, still holding the miniature of his 
wife close-pressed upon his heart. 

Such, then, was the march to Smolensk. Of that 
city, as it appeared in 1778 and continued till 1812, a 
full description may be found in Coxe's Travels. He 
says that, though by no means the most magnificent, 
it was by far the most singular town he had ever seen. 
But to the French, in November, 1812, the name bore 
a fanciful charm as Eldorado in old times to the 
Spaniards. Smolensk ! Smolensk ! was now the general 
cry. Smolensk was to supply all their wants; Smo- 
lensk was to be the term of their retreat. Every eye 
was eagerly strained to catch the first glimpse of its 



36 THE FRENCH EETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

antique towers, crowning its two irregular hills, and 
emerging from the vast plains of wintry snow. 

But alas for these too sanguine hopes ! From the 
difficulties which had been found of transport, and the 
want of precise orders as to the line of homeward 
march, the magazines of this city were by no means 
such as had been expected and announced. They 
would afford resources for a halt of days, but not for 
a sojourn of months. 

Napoleon, at the head of the foremost corps, reached 
Smolensk on the 9th of November. He gave orders 
that ample distributions should be made to his Guards, 
and that the gates should be shut against the other 
divisions of his army as they came. But it was found 
impossible to maintain that exclusion. The late 
comers — some of whom had so recently fought and 
bled and endured every extremity of hardship for the 
protection of their vanguard — would not bear to be 
shut out. They burst through the gates, and, finding 
no progress made in the distributions of food that were 
promised them, they next broke open the magazines. 
" On pille les magasins ! " was the cry that now arose in 
the French ranks. Every soldier rushed to the scene 
to secure his own part in the plunder. It was some 
time ere order could be restored, and the remnant of 
provisions be saved for the corps of Davoust and Prince 
Eugene. The rear under N~ey was even less fortunate. 
Having had on the 11th another fierce conflict to 
sustain against the Russians, it did not appear before 
Smolensk till the 14th. By that time everything had 
been wasted or devoured. " When I went into the 



THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 37 

city," says Fezensac, " I could find nothing at all for 
my regiment or myself. We had to resign ourselves 
to our dismal prospect of continuing our march with- 
out any distribution of food." 

At Smolensk, however, Napoleon roused himself 
from the lethargy which, as M. Thiers admits, seems 
to have benumbed him during the first days of the 
retreat. He made strenuous efforts to re-organize his 
army, but found the main causes of its dissolution 
beyond his control. The division of Prince Eugene, 
marching a little to the northward, had lost nearly all 
its artillery at the encumbered and disastrous passage 
of a small river, the Yop. Altogether 380 pieces of 
cannon had been taken or left behind. The fighting 
men in rank and file were now less than one-half of 
what they had been when the army left Moscow. On 
the other hand, some reinforcements appeared at Smo- 
lensk, both of horse and foot, belonging to the division 
of General Baraguay d'Hilliers, and these Napoleon 
distributed among the several corps so as in some 
degree to recruit their far-diminished numbers. 

Besides the argument to be derived from the 
failing magazines, there were other strong reasons 
against a continued sojourn at Smolensk. Napoleon 
had received unfavourable accounts from both his 
flanks. On his right, as it became in his homeward 
movement, the Russian General Wittgenstein had 
repulsed St. Cyr, had retaken Polotsk, and was march- 
ing south. On the left the Russians had succeeded 
in concluding a peace with Turkey, so that Admiral 
Tchitchakof, who commanded their army in that 



38 THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

quarter, had become free of his movements, and was 
marching north. It was not difficult to conjecture 
whither these two chiefs were separately tending. 
About half-way between Smolensk and Wilna rolls a 
wide river, the Beresina, so rapid in its stream as 
not to be readily congealed by the first frosts. The 
bridge across that river, in the line of the French 
retreat, lay at the little town of Borisow. If, then, 
either Wittgenstein or Tchitchakof could reach this 
position and seize it before Napoleon — still more if 
both could be combined — the French retreat would 
be intercepted, and the French army, including its 
Emperor, might be compelled to lay down its arms. 

Conscious that there was no time to lose in con- 
tinuing the retreat, Napoleon set out from Smolensk 
on the 14th at the head of his Guards ; but seeing 
how much the other divisions which had arrived after 
him stood in need of rest, he gave orders that they 
should depart successively on the 15th and 16th, 
while Ney, who commanded the last, and had to 
complete the evacuation of the city, should remain 
till the morning of the 17th. By this system three 
days' march would intervene between the front of the 
army and its rear. It was a wise course so far as the 
refreshment of the troops was concerned, but not 
judicious, inasmuch as it overlooked the fact that, by 
the recent enormous losses of the French army, the 
Kussians had come to exceed it in numbers. It was 
not hard to foresee that Kutusof, if he found his 
enemies thus disseminated, would endeavour to cut 
off their divisions in detail. 






THE FRENCH RETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW- 39 

This is precisely what in fact occurred. The 
Kussian army, moving forward while the French was 
taking rest, had advanced to Krasnoi, two marches 
beyond Smolensk, and occupied a strong position on 
the side of a steep ravine through which the French 
would have to pass. When Napoleon appeared at that 
defile, on the afternoon of the 15th, the Kussians had 
not yet completed their preparations, and allowed the 
French to go through. But when, on the 16th, there 
came up the division of Prince Eugene, it was con- 
fronted by an iron wall of soldiers and by ranges of 
cannon ready to play. Eugene charged these obstacles 
with his usual gallantry, but without success ; and he 
saw in a short time the ground strewed with two thou- 
sand of his men; dead or wounded, it was much the 
same, since none of the latter could be moved. He 
found it requisite at night to attempt a side-march to 
the right, avoiding the ravine by the plain along the 
Dnieper, and thus (his men treading softly on the 
snow) he was enabled, after heavy loss, to rejoin the 
Emperor at Krasnoi. 

The difficulties of this day appear to have con- 
vinced Napoleon of the error he had committed in the 
dissemination of his army. Early on the 17th he 
marched back from Krasnoi to the ravine, and drew 
out the Guards in battle order ready to support the 
division of Davoust. By such aid Davoust, though 
sharply beset, was enabled to effect his junction. But 
both he, and Prince Eugene the day before, lost in that 
perilous pass the greater part of their remaining 
artillery and baggage. 



40 THE EKENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

There was no further time to lose. On the 14th 
the Beaunmr thermometer had fallen to 20 degrees 
below zero, that is, to 13 below zero of Fahrenheit. 
Since then, however, there had been some remission 
of the cold, and even some commencement of a thaw. 
It was doubtful whether the ice upon the Dnieper 
would be firm enough to bear the weight of cannon 
and baggage, or even of horses and men. It became 
therefore of primary importance to secure the bridge 
across that river at the little town of Orcha, and in 
the due line of the retreat. Orcha was two marches 
from Krasnoi, and the Eussians, of whom a large body 
was already in movement towards that post, would 
undoubtedly seize and hold it unless they were antici- 
pated by the French. 

In this exigency, Napoleon set forth in all haste 
at the head of his Guards, and he did succeed in 
reaching Orcha in sufficient time. He left to Marshal 
Davoust two orders : the one to keep close to Mortier, 
who commanded the hindmost division of the Guards ; 
the other, to support and sustain the advance of 
Marshal Ney. These orders were in fact contradictory, 
and Napoleon must have felt that they were so, but 
he was unwilling to take upon himself in explicit 
terms the terrible responsibility of leaving to their 
fate Marshal Ney and the whole rear-guard. Davoust, 
in this choice of difficulties, deemed it — and he 
probably was right — the superior duty to rejoin 
the main body, and he accordingly marched onward 
to Orcha. Worse still, he was prevented, by the want 
of safe communication, from sending any notice to Ney 
of his intended departure. 



THE FEENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 41 

Ney therefore remained entirely ignorant of the 
extreme peril to which he was exposed. He marched 
forward on the morning of the 17th, haying first, 
according to his orders, blown up the defences of 
Smolensk and set the buildings on fire — orders that 
certainly had not in any measure consulted the welfare 
of the numerous French, sick and wounded, who in 
this very town were left in the enemy's hands. Next 
day he came up with the Russian army at the defile 
in front of Krasnoi. He made a most gallant charge, 
and trusted to force his way, but his division was only 
of six thousand men with six pieces of cannon, while 
the Russians had well-nigh fifty thousand men with 
large well-appointed batteries. Notwithstanding the 
intrepidity of his veterans, the result could not be 
doubtful. He was repulsed with heavy loss ; and in 
the evening he received a flag of truce from General 
Milorado witch, offering him a capitulation on most 
honourable terms. He now learnt that the other 
French divisions were already at or near Orcha, and 
that he was separated from them by the Russian army 
intervening, by the river Dnieper, and by more than 
fifteen leagues of distance. How many commanders in 
his place would have utterly despaired ! 

But the constancy of Ney was unshaken. He 
vouchsafed no answer at all to the flag of truce ; only 
he retained the officer lest Miloradowitch should 
gather any news of his design. Towards sunset he 
set his troops in movement through the open fields 
to his right. In these critical moments, says Fezensac, 
his countenance showed neither irresolution nor un- 



42 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

easiness ; all eyes were turned to him, but no one for 
a long time presumed to put to him any question. At 
length, seeing near him one of his officers — perhaps 
Fezensac himself — the following dialogue passed, which 
Fezensac relates : — 

" Le Marechal lui dit a demi-voix : ' Nous ne sommes pas 
bienJ ' Quallez vous faire f ' repondit l'officier. — ' Passer 
le Dnieper.'' — ' Oh est le chemin ? ' — ' N(ms le trounerons' — 
' Et s'il n'est pas gele ? ' — ' II le sera.' — ' A la bonne heure I ' 
dit l'officier. Ce singulier dialogue, que je rapporte 
textuelleroent, revela le projet du Marechal fie gagner 
Orcha par la rive gauche du fleuve, et assez rapidenient 
pour y trouver encore l'armee qui faisait son mouvement 
par la rive gauche." 

To carry out this daring design, the first object — 
marching in the dark and across fields — was to find 
the river. Marshal Ney, with the ready instinct of 
a good commander, that knows how to derive aid even 
from the most trifling circumstances, seeing some ice 
before him, ordered it to be broken, and observed the 
direction of the water that ran beneath, rightly con- 
cluding that the streamlet must be one of the Dnieper 
confluents. Guided by this indication he reached the 
river's bank, and found there a small village. Happily 
for his object, the river was found to be frozen — suffi- 
ciently at least to bear men, and even with great 
precaution some horses, though not artillery or 
baggage. It was also judged impossible to convey 
any further the wounded made in the action of that 
morning, who were accordingly left behind, in spite of 
their entreaties and cries. In that manner, towards 






THE FKENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 43 

midnight, the Dnieper was successfully passed, and 
the troops without further respite resumed their 
march. Before daylight they came to another village, 
where they found a party of Cossacks fast asleep ; 
these were taken prisoners or put to the sword. 

Weary as were the soldiers, their safety — and they 
knew it — was entirely dependent on their pushing on. 
They met some parties of Cossacks, who however 
retired before them. At mid-day they came to two 
more villages, upon a height, where they were happy 
in finding some provisions. But in the afternoon it 
was no longer an outpost or two of the enemy with 
which they had to deal ; Platof and all his Cossacks 
were upon them. Exhausted as they were by fatigue, 
and inferior in numbers, it became necessary for them 
to quit the track, so as to avoid the risk of a cavalry 
charge, and to move along the pine-woods that bordered 
the Dnieper on that side. Darkness came, and still 
they struggled on beneath the trees, often separated 
from each other, and under circumstances when a wound 
might be deemed equivalent to death. M. de Fezensac 
has described the scene as only an eye-witness could : — 

" Les Cosaques nous criaient de nous rendre, et tiraient 
a bout-portant au milieu de nous; ceux qui etaient frappes 
restaient abandonnes. Un sergent eut la jambe fracassee 
d'un coup de carabine. II tomba a cote de moi, en disant 
froidenient a ses camarades : Voila un homme perdu ; prenez 
mon sac; vous en projiterez. On prit son sac, et nous 
l'abandonnames en silence. Deux officiers blesses eurent 
le meme sort. . . . Tel qui avait ete un heros sur le 
champ de bataille paraissait alors inquiet et trouble." 

Still more evil was their plight when the pine- 



44 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

woods ended, and they had to stagger onwards through 
the open country, painfully climbing several steep 
ravines, and exposed not only to the enemy's horse- 
men, but to his field artillery. For the greater part 
of the next day, Marshal Ney took position on a 
height and stood on the defensive. It was not till 
the return of darkness that he resumed his toilsome 
march. Meanwhile he had sent forward a Polish 
officer to make his way if possible to Orcha, and 
announce to the French chiefs his approach. 

During this time, at the French headquarters, 
Napoleon, having secured his passage of the Dnieper, 
looked back with extreme anxiety to his gallant and 
forsaken rear-guard. He took up his own quarters 
some leagues onward on the Borisow road, but in- 
structed Prince Eugene and Davoust to remain one 
or two days longer at Orcha, ready, if there were still 
any possibility of aid, to succour Ney. Under these 
circumstances the two chiefs welcomed with most 
heartfelt delight the news which the Polish officer 
brought them. Prince Eugene at once led forth a 
part of his division to receive and welcome le brave 
des braves. Thus when, at one league from Orcha, 
the first men of Key's feeble column saw close before 
them a body of troops, they found with inexpressible 
joy their cry of Qui vive? answered in French. 
Another moment and Ney and Eugene were locked 
in each other's arms. " One must have passed," says 
De Fezensac, " as we had, three days between life and 
death, to judge in full measure of the ecstasy which 
this meeting gave us." 



THE FRENCH RETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 45 

Nor was Napoleon himself less elated. M. de 
Bausset was then in attendance upon him at the coun- 
try house of Baranoui, some leagues beyond Orcha, 
and he bears witness to the pangs of suspense which 
the Emperor endured. At length the good news of 
Ney's safety came. It was brought by General 
Gourgatid — the same who subsequently shared the 
captivity of St. Helena. Napoleon, who was then 
sitting at breakfast, showed the most lively satisfac- 
tion. " J'ai plus de quatre cent millions dans les caves 
des Tuileries ; je les aurais donnes avec reconnaissance 
pour la rancon de mon fidele compagnon d' amies" Such 
were the words he spoke ; or, as M. de Bausset puts it, 
more in a lord chamberlain's style, " Tels sont les mots 
que j ' entendis sortir de la louche de VEmpereur" 

The triumph of Ney, however, was clearly bought. 
Of the six thousand men with whom he had marched 
out of Smolensk he brought less than one thousand to 
Orcha. But he had maintained the glory of his eagles ; 
he had spared a French marshal and a French corps 
d'armee the dishonour of capitulation. 

The losses sustained by the clivers French corps at 
Krasnoi, and in the two marches beyond it, are com- 
puted by the French writers at ten or twelve thousand 
men, in killed, wounded, and prisoners. Of the whole 
Grande Armee there remained at Orcha no more than 
24,000 men in rank and line, and about an equal num- 
ber of disbanded soldiers partly without arms. The 
cavalry was almost extinct. In this extremity, Na- 
poleon formed the greater number of the officers who 
still retained a horse into a body-guard, which he called 



46 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

VEscadron Sacre. Here the captains took the part of 
privates and the colonels of subalterns, while the 
generals served as regimental chiefs. 

Thus far diminished, and still diminishing, the 
mass pursued its dismal movement to the Beresina. 
There was now a thaw, and the soldiers, with worn-out 
shoes, and with the trees dripping down upon them, 
toiled painfully along through the mire. Every day 
was marked with some new incident, evincing, more 
than could any general description, the extremities 
that they endured. At Liady, for instance — but this 
was even before Orcha — some three hundred men of 
the First Corps, clustered together, had laid down in 
a barn for their night's rest. But the barn caught fire, 
and these poor men had become so linked and en- 
tangled one with the other that none could escape. 
Only one was found half dead, but still breathing, and 
he in mercy was despatched with two musket-balls. 

Another day upon the march the troops observed- 
some combs of honey near the summit of a lofty tree. 
There were no side branches, and to climb seemed a 
perilous venture ; nevertheless some soldiers, thinking 
they might as well die of a fall as of famine, made the 
attempt and reached the place. Then they threw down 
the combs by morsels, on which their comrades below 
ravenously pounced, " like so many famished hounds," 
says Fezensac, who was present at this painful scene. 

The Emperor was now looking forward to a junction 
on the Beresina with two of his corps oVarmee — those of 
Marshal Oudinot and Marshal Victor — coming from 
the flank army on his north. The two marshals had 



THE FEENCH KETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 47 

sustained some heavy losses, but could still bring him, 
together, at least 25,000 excellent soldiers. On the 
other hand, he could no longer indulge the hope of 
securing without obstacle the passage of the river. The 
Eussians under Tchitchakof had reached Borisow, 
routed the Polish garrison, and burnt the Beresina 
bridge. It would be requisite to span the river at some 
other point by a new bridge as rapidly as possible, and 
unperceived by the Russians. And here the improvi- 
dence of the arrangements for this retreat became once 
more apparent. There was with the army an excellent 
veteran officer of engineers, General Eble. There were 
under his command some scores of experienced pon- 
toniers. There was a double pontoon train (sixty in 
number) which was left at Orcha in the advance to Mos- 
cow, and which was found still at Orcha on the return. 
General Eble earnestly pressed Napoleon to take for- 
ward at least fifteen of these pontoons, so as to secure 
within two or three hours the construction of a bridge, 
should any be found needful. But this the pride of 
the Emperor forbade. He preferred that the fresh 
draught-horses ready at Orcha for this service should 
be employed in dragging onward some more pieces of 
artillery. All that could be obtained by General Eble 
was authority to transport materials for the far less 
expeditious font de chevalets. It was almost surrep- 
titiously that he added six tumbrils, containing the 
necessary tools and implements. 

Yet, as it proved, it was solely on these chevalets — 
on these tools and implements— that the safety of the 
whole depended. There is no exaggeration in saying 



48 THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

that but for them every man of the Grande Armee must 
have laid down his arms. For on the 24th the weather 
changed and the frost returned, though not in its full 
severity ; consequently during the next few days the 
Beresina proved to be in the state of all others most 
unfavourable for a passage — not bound fast by frost, 
and on the other hand not free from floating ice. 
When with great difficulty and some good fortune a 
ford was discovered at Studianka, several leagues to 
the north of Borisow, it appeared that only men on 
horseback could pass, and that with extreme risk, since 
the huge blocks whirled along by the current would 
often strike down and overwhelm both horse and man. 

Studianka was seized by a French detachment, 
while the Bussians were amused by a feint of Napoleon 
at Borisow. Some cavalry soldiers, each taking an- 
other man behind him, rode boldly through the ford and 
secured the opposite bank. Then on the 25th General 
Eble commenced the construction of a double bridge — 
the one for the artillery and baggage, the other for the 
horse or men on foot. The brave pontoniers, faithful 
to the voice of their admirable chief, plunged into the 
icy stream and continued at their work through the 
night. It was not merely the icy stream and the 
winter season — it was not merely the toil by night and 
day — but these much-enduring men had no nourishing 
food, no fermented drinks, to sustain them — not one 
ounce of bread, not one spoonful of brandy. There was 
only some hot broth made of horseflesh, and without 
salt, which was served out to them from time to time. 

By unremitting exertions on the part of these de- 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 49 

voted soldiers the bridges were completed in the course 
of the 26th, and the passage began. Meanwhile the 
Bussians, at length apprised of Napoleon's real design, 
made some furious onsets on his rear, which, however, 
was well supported by the newly arrived corps of Oudi- 
not and Victor. These two marshals here sustained a 
heavy loss of men, which the diminished army could 
ill spare. Nor could the passage be effected without 
further hindrance and delay. Several of the clievalets 
sank beneath the weight and were submerged. It 
became necessary again and again to send back into 
the water the heroic pontoniers, quivering as they were 
with cold, and faint with unsatisfied hunger. The 
icicles which gathered round their shoulders as they 
worked, and which tore their flesh, caused them cruel 
pain, and many were struck and maimed by the float- 
ing blocks ; but still the survivors persevered. 

General Eble, in spite of his advanced years, had 
by no means spared himself, but plunged like his men 
into the fatal stream. He paid the penalty of his 
noble conduct a few weeks afterwards, dying in the 
military hospital at Konigsberg of a fievre de congela- 
tion — a dreadful malady, not confined to those who had 
suffered from frost or cold, but contagious as the plague, 
and in which, after grievous suffering, the limbs seem 
to lose their vital power and to rot away. Many of his 
pontoniers underwent the like or even an earlier doom. 
Of about one hundred who had wrought in these 
waters at his call, it is stated by M. Thiers that ulti- 
mately no more than twelve survived. 

Such of our readers as are conversant with the 



50 THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

lighter literature of modern France, will no doubt 
remember the great skill with which M. de Balzac, in 
his " Meclecin de Campagne," has portrayed Gondrin, 
whom he describes as the last of these Beresina pon- 
toniers. How true to nature the complaint of the un- 
taught man against those who have obtained promo- 
tion over his head, les intrigans qui savent lire et ecrire I 
and how graphic his account of the clerks at the War 
Office, " ces gens qui passent leur vie a se chauffer dans 
les hureaux ! lis m'ont demande mes papiers ! ( Mes 
papiers f ' leur ai-je dit, mais c'est le vingt-neuvieme 
bulletin." 

We return to the Beresina. Although two days, 
the 27th and 28th, were devoted to the passage, it was 
but imperfectly effected ; for, besides the occasional 
breaking down of the bridges and the necessity for 
fresh repairs, the access to them was constantly im- 
peded by the tangled mass of carts and carriages. 
Many of these were upset — many others crushed toge- 
ther, or pushed forward into the river. It was a scene 
of indescribable confusion, evincing that fierce selfish- 
ness which long suffering produces. There was the 
explosion of tumbrils carelessly ignited — there was the 
stamp of horses rushing wildly through the crowd — 
there was the wail of women and children — there was 
the crash of the artillery pressed onward by the can- 
noniers over the living and the dead. On that last 
day, moreover, the French troops had to sustain, not 
on one bank only of the river but on both, the repeated 
and desperate onsets of the Russians. 

The French positions however were, as usual, most 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 51 

gallantly maintained. Only one division, that of 
. General Partouneaux, missing its route and surrounded 
by twenty times its numbers, was compelled to lay 
down its arms. But Marshal Victor, who had held the 
effective rear-guard covering the bridges, was enabled 
to cross the Beresina unmolested after nightfall. Then, 
the whole army having passed, it became of urgent 
importance to destroy the bridges on the morning of 
the 29th, so as to prevent, or at all events delay, the 
Bussian pursuit. There then still remained upon the 
eastern side a confused multitude, comprising the 
weakest and most helpless of the camp-followers, and 
numbering, it was thought, between 6000 and 8000. 
Napoleon had sent directions to fire the trains at seven 
in the morning ; but the kind-hearted Eble, anxious 
to save some more from that multitude beyond, who 
with eager efforts were now feebly struggling across 
the encumbered bridges, delayed the order on his 
own responsibility until nearly nine : then, seeing the 
enemy advancing and ready to pass, he — turning aside 
his head not to view the grievous scene — gave the fatal 
word. Instantly the two bridges blew up, with all the 
poor wretches upon them. Then, even amidst the roar 
of the explosion, there arose from the opposite shore 
the wild and despairing shriek of the people left be- 
hind. Wounded men and helpless women, and half- 
unconscious little children, were seen with bitter tears 
to stretch forth their arms in last farewell towards their 
countrymen, compelled by a dire necessity to leave 
them to their doom. Many flung themselves madly 
upon the fragments of the flaming bridges — others as 



52 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

madly dashed into the river. As to the main mass, 
their fate was soon decided. The hovering Cossacks, 
seeing them forsaken, darted down at full gallop upon 
them. They speared as though in playful mood the 
first of the crowd they came upon, and the rest they 
drove before them, at their lance's point, like a flock of 
sheep. How many may have lived through the 
miseries of that captivity is known to God alone ; but 
it is believed that scarce any of the number ever again 
beheld their native land. 

Meanwhile the French army, or rather the sad 
remains of it, pursued its dreary route to Wilna, still 
fifty-four leagues distant. It was, as usual, harassed 
and beset by swarms of Cossacks, but was faintly pur- 
sued on the part of the Russian generals, who must 
have felt reluctant to suffer further losses of their men 
while the elements were warring on their side. The 
frost had become more rigorous than ever, the ther- 
mometer of Reaumur having fallen on some occasions 
so low as thirty degrees below zero, equivalent to thirty- 
five below zero of Fahrenheit. Such extremity of cold 
can be ill endured by men from a milder clime, even 
when provided with warm beds and nourishing food. 
What agony, then, must it have inflicted on that 
famishing crowd, compelled in many cases to make 
their pillows of mounds of snow ! 

Sir Robert Wilson, who was present in the Russian 
camp, has well described the scene. " The sky," he 
says, " was generally clear, and there was a subtle, keen, 
razor-cutting, creeping wind, that penetrated skin, 
muscle, and bone to the very marrow, rendering the 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 53 

surface as white and the whole limb affected as fragile 
as alabaster. Sometimes there was a foudroyant seizure 
that benumbed at once the whole frame." It is no 
wonder, then, that Sir Kobert should proceed to state 
of the French troops, " A general recklessness con- 
founded all ranks, command ceased, and it became a 
sauve qui pent at a funeral pace." 

Not at all more favourable is the account of the 
French themselves. M. de Fezensac declares that this 
period was the most disastrous of the whole retreat : — 

" Let any one," he says, " conceive the sight of plains 
as far as the eye could extend, all covered with snow — 
long forests of pine-trees — villages half burned down and 
deserted — and in the midst of these dismal scenes an im- 
mense column of suffering wretches, nearly all without 
arms, marching pell-mell, and falling again and again 
upon the ice by the side of their dead horses and dead 
comrades. Their faces bore the impress of extreme dejec- 
tion, nay, despair ; their eyes were quenched, their features 
decomposed and quite black with grime and smoke. 
Strips of sheepskin or pieces of cloth served them instead 
of shoes ; their heads were swathed round with tatters ; 
and their shoulders covered with horse-cloths, women's 
petticoats, or half-scorched hides. All such means of 
warmth had their value, for, whenever any man fell from 
fatigue, his comrades, at once, and without waiting for his 
death, despoiled him of his rags for themselves to wear. 
Each nightly bivouac came to resemble a battle-field the 
next morning, and one was wont to find dead at one's side 
the men next to whom one had lain down the evening 
before." 

Even the Imperial cortege had a share in these ter- 
rible sufferings. M. de Fezensac, who came up with it 



54 THE FKENCH EETEEAT FKOM MOSCOW. 

on the 3rd of December, between Ilia and Molodetschno, 
declares that no one who remembered its splendour at 
the beginning of the campaign would have known it 
again. The Guard was marching with disordered ranks 
and with sorrowing and reproachful faces. The Em- 
peror was shut up in a carriage with the Prince de 
Neufchatel (Berthier). Behind him followed a small 
number of equipages, of led horses, and of mules — the 
scanty remnant from such great disasters. The aides- 
de-camp of Napoleon, as well as those of Berthier, 
walked on foot, holding by the bridle their horses, 
which could scarcely keep upright. Sometimes, to 
obtain a little rest, they sat behind the Emperor's car- 
riage. In the midst of this sad procession feebly 
tottered a crowd of disabled men pell-mell from all the 
regiments, while the gloomy forest of pines through 
which it was wending appeared like a black frame 
around the dismal picture. 

Even here the gaiety of M. de Bausset does not 
quite forsake him. He states that the civilians in the 
Emperor's train were exposed to the enemy's attack 
about this time, when, having once by accident out- 
stripped their ordinary escort, they found themselves 
surrounded by Cossacks. But they called for aid to 
the brave Belliard, Colonel-General des Dragons, who, 
though wounded, sprang from his carriage, and, gather- 
ing some soldiers round him, put " the birds of prey " 
to flight. The costume of the general, as he had 
assumed it for warmth, is here described. He wore 
over his uniform a lady's spencer of pink satin, well 
lined inside with fur. Before their flight the Cossacks 



THE FRENCH EETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 55 

had, however, some time for plunder ; they bore away 
les papiers de la GJiancellerie, and also les provisions de 
louche secured for that day to the auditors : Cetait 
faire la plus grande perte possible dans la position ou 
nous etions. This terrible loss of his expected meal 
appears to have roused the lord chamberlain to a 
most unusual frenzy. " Oest la seule fois dans ma vie 
que je me sois senti saisis de I'envie dJatteindre un 
ennemi ! " 

A more amiable feature in M. de Bausset's cha- 
racter was his constant kindness to the unfortunate 
actors and actresses who had been under his direction 
at Moscow. Many of them dropped off during the 
retreat, and M. de Bausset never heard of them 
again. Madame Bursay, the direetrice, evinced a lofty 
courage. She was intent on saving two things — first, a 
young lady and friend of her troop, Madame Andre; 
and secondly, a manuscript poem of her own, " De la 
Mecliocrite," from which she expected future fame. M. 
de Bausset relates how beyond Krasnoi the wheels of 
the carriage that conveyed them were dashed to pieces 
by the enemy's cannon-balls, upon which Madame 
Bursay made her way on foot to the head-quarters 
at Liacly, supporting in her arms and almost carrying 
her companion, who had swooned and was half dead 
with fear. They arrived before the bivouac fire at one 
in the morning, Madame Bursay still firmly clutching 
her poem " De la Mediocrite," qiielle tenait roule dans 
sa main comme un Marechal a" Empire aurait tenu son 
baton de commandement. The influence of De Bausset 
obtained for these ladies two remaining places in a 



56 THE FRENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

fourgon imperial, and they succeeded, amidst many 
other dangers, in passing the Beresina and in reaching 
France. But the health of Madame Andre had failed 
from so much hardship, and she died within two months 
of her return. 

Other escapes there were, as Fezensac reports them, 
truly marvellous amidst such scenes, and evincing in 
many cases the utmost sympathy and kindness from 
the poor perishing soldiers. One man, a drummer in 
the 7th, led his sick wile, a cantiniere of the same 
regiment, in a small horse-car from Moscow to Smolensk. 
There the horse died, and the man yoked himself to 
the car in the horse's place. Incredible as the effort 
seems, he drew on his wife all the way to Wilna, and, 
her sickness having then increased so as to prevent any 
further removal, he chose, rather than proceed alone, 
to become a joint prisoner with her. Another poor 
woman, a cantiniere of the 33rd, had set out from 
Moscow with her little daughter only six months old. 
This child, wrapped in a fur cloak taken at Moscow, she 
bore safely through all that famished march, feeding 
her only with a paste made of horse's blood. Twice 
she was lost by her mother, and twice was she re- 
covered — the first time lying in a field, and the second 
time in a burned-down village with a mattress for her 
couch. At the Beresina her mother, finding both 
bridges at the time obstructed, passed the river on 
horseback with the water up to her neck, grasping with 
one hand the bridle, and with the other holding the 
child upon her head. Thus, by a succession of marvels 
— it might almost be said of miracles — the little girl 



THE FKENCH KETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 57 

completed the entire retreat without any accident, 
and did not even catch cold. 

Cases of such tender care amidst such terrible 
sufferings — cases which do honour to the French 
character, and even, it may be said, to human nature 
itself — may, however, be contrasted with others, un- 
avoidable we fear when human nature is so sorely tried, 
and when sufferings like these produce, on the contrary, 
a cruel selfishness. Once a general officer, worn out 
with fatigue, had fallen down on the road, and a soldier 
passing by began to pull off his boats. The general 
faintly gasped forth the request to wait at least till he 
was dead before he was despoiled. " Mon General" 
answered the soldier, " I would with all my heart, but 
if I do not take your boots, the next comer will, and 
therefore they may as well be mine." And so he 
continued to pull ! 

Another day an officer of the Engineers was also 
lying prostrate and exhausted. Seeing some soldiers 
pass, he called out to them for aid and told them who 
he was. " And are you really an officer of the 
Engineers? " said the soldiers stopping. " I am indeed, 
my friends," answered the officer, hopeful of their 
succour from their words. " Well, then, go on with 
your plans ! " rejoined one of the soldiers in mockery, 
and they all marched on. 

Amidst such scenes and sights of woe the retreat 
proceeded. The Emperor reached Molodetschno on the 
3rd of December. There he dictated and despatched 
that famous bulletin — the 29th in number since the 
commencement of the campaign — which lifted at least 



58 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

in some degree the veil from the horrors of the retreat, 
and which, as published in the Moniteur of the 17th 
of December, diffused deep gloom in almost every 
family of France, since there was scarcely one perhaps 
unconnected in kindred or in friendship with some 
soldier, now most probably perished, of the Grande 
Armee. But besides this general grief, another and as 
strong a feeling was excited by the following words 
with which the bulletin concludes : " La sante de Sa 
Majeste n'a jamais ete meilleure." This phrase was 
introduced, as we believe, without any ill-feeling, and in 
defiance as it were to the strokes of adverse fortune ; 
but it was commonly taken as evincing the insen- 
sibility of the writer to the sufferings which he beheld 
on every side around him, and which he in fact had 
caused. 

This touch of the national feeling has not been left 
unnoticed by those Siamese twins of authorship, or 
rather, according to Colman's line — 

" Like two single gentlemen rolled into one," — 

Erckmann and Chatrian. In their justly popular 
" Consent " they describe the talk as it may have 
passed among the peasants in the market-place at 
Phalsburg, when the 29th bulletin was read : — 

" Les oris et les gemissemens se firent entendre. . . . 
II est vrai que l'affiche ajontait : La sante de Sa Majeste n'a 
jamais ete meilleure ; et e'etait une grande consolation. 
Malheureusement cela ne pouvait pas rendre la vie aux 
trois cent mille homines enterres dans la neige." 

Another phrase in this bulletin was understood in 



THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 59 

a similar sense. It says that in this retreat the men 
whom Nature had endowed with superior powers still 
preserved their gaiety. Gaiety amidst such scenes ! 
M. de Narbonne, who had attended the Emperor from 
Moscow to Smorgoni, and held the rank of his senior 
aide-de-camp, was thought to be foremost among the 
very few for whom this singular compliment was 
designed. When some weeks afterwards M. de Nar- 
bonne returned to Paris, one of his young friends 
(M. Yillemain) addressed to him a question on the 
subject. " Were I to live thirty years longer," so 
writes M. Yillemain in 1854, "I should never forget 
his keen look of displeasure as he answered, Ah, 
VEmpereur pent tout dire; mats gaiete est Men fort! 
And he turned aside, shedding some tears at the 
horrors he remembered but too well. " 

From Molodetschno, where this far-famed bulletin 
was written, the Emperor proceeded on the second day 
to Smorgoni, a small town still three marches from 
Wilna. Arriving on the afternoon of the 5th of 
December, he immediately summoned a council of 
war, which comprised Murat, Eugene, and the marshals. 
To these he imparted the design, upon which his mind 
had brooded for some days past, to quit the army and 
to proceed with the utmost secrecy, and also with the 
utmost despatch, to Paris. His return to his capital 
almost simultaneously with the news of his disaster 
would strike a salutary awe into his ill-wishers both 
at home and abroad, and above all would maintain the 
— perhaps already wavering — alliance of the German 
princes. At Paris also he could direct the new levies 



60 THE FEENCH EETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

which would be requisite with the greatest prompti- 
tude and vigour, and might return in three months at 
the head of 300,000 men. 

These were certainly, as M. Thiers admits, very- 
powerful reasons ; and yet, as the same historian pro- 
ceeds to urge, there were also considerations of much 
weight to adduce on the opposite side. It is true that 
the Grande Armee — a term that now, alas ! had become 
almost an irony — had dwindled, even including the 
Guard, to 12,000 soldiers able to bear arms, and to a 
mass of some 40,000 straggling and disbanded men. 
But if Napoleon had determined to hold fast by this 
ruin and to make a stand at Wilna, he would there 
have received some considerable reinforcements already 
on their march, and near at hand to join him. He 
might have strengthened himself with his two wings, 
the corps of Macdonald from the north, and of Kegnier 
from the south ; and he might further have called to 
his aid from the same quarters the Prussians, under 
York, and the Austrians, under Schwarzenberg ; both 
of whom would certainly at that period have obeyed 
his call. Thus, as M. Thiers proceeds to show in some 
detail, he might have mustered a force fully equal to 
any the Eussians could at the juncture in question 
have brought against him. There was also the proud 
feeling of adhering, as the commander, to an army 
which, under his command, had suffered the direst 
extremities of war. 

It is remarkable that the only two familiars whose 
advice was sought by Napoleon before the Council at 
Smorgoni — namely, the Duke de Bassano and Count 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 61 

Daru, the former being consulted by letter, and the 
second by word of mouth — both strongly urged the 
Emperor to remain. They alleged that the ruin of 
the army would become complete and irretrievable in 
the event of his departure; that, on the other hand, 
the conspiracy of Malet had left no traces in France, 
and that the Emperor's orders for the new armaments 
which he needed would be obeyed as implicitly from 
Wilna as from the Tuileries. 

These arguments, however, did not move the 
Emperor from his settled design. Of the chiefs 
assembled at Smorgoni Napoleon asked no counsel; 
he merely apprised them of his will. He had resolved 
to name as vicegerent in his absence Murat, King of 
Naples, the highest among them in rank, though 
certainly not in knowledge and ability. Having 
announced to them his intentions and explained his 
motives, he exhorted them to unity and concord ; then 
embracing them one by one, he bade them farewell, 
and set out on his journey the same evening. 

The suite selected by the Emperor on this occasion 
consisted only of Caulaincourt (with whom he sat alone 
in the first carriage), Duroc, Lobau, and Lefebvre 
Desmouettes, the Mamaluke Koustan, a valet de 
chambre, two valets de pied, and one piqueur. Beside 
these, there was also a young Polish officer, Count 
Wonsowicz, who would be of special service as inter- 
preter during the first part of the journey. And 
here we would direct attention to a small booklet, 
"Itineraire de Napoleon de Smorgoni a Paris," which 
was published at Paris in 1862, but which, as we 



62 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

imagine, has scarcely, if at all, reached England. It 
is edited by a veteran French diplomatist, Baron 
Paul de Bourgoing, but in fact consists of the notes 
which M. de Bourgoing received from Wonsowicz. 
This interesting little volume supplies us with some 
facts not hitherto known. 

In commencing this journey, Count Wonsowicz and 
the piqueur went first, as explorers, in a traineau ; at 
a little distance the Emperor and his remaining suite 
followed in three carriages. Up to the first stage, the 
little town of Oszmiana, they were escorted by thirty 
Chasseurs a clieval de la Garde. It was known from the 
outset that the expedition would be dangerous, from 
the swarms of Cossacks and detachments of the enemy's 
troops who might be in advance. But the peril proved 
to be much greater than had been foreseen. When 
the rapid traineau dashed into Oszmiana at past 
midnight, Wonsowicz was surprised to see the small 
French garrison, comprising three squadrons of Polish 
lancers, drawn up in battle order on the. public square ; 
there was, they said, a Kussian force in front of them, 
and almost in sight ; they had been attacked the day 
before, and expected to be attacked again. The 
general in command declared that there would be the 
greatest rashness in proceeding. 

In about an hour's time Napoleon in his turn drove 
up, and was found to be fast asleep in his carriage ; he 
was awakened by Wonsowicz and told the unwelcome 
news. He then got down and eagerly unfolded his 
map of Lithuania. , All the chiefs in attendance 
pressed him to pause in the face of such imminent 



THE FEENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 63 

hazards, and wait at least till daybreak. But Napoleon, 
with truer wisdom, saw that promptitude alone could 
save him. Even a short delay might reveal the secret 
of his journey and quicken his enemy's pursuit. He 
found, moreover, that his small party need not proceed 
without some protection. He might take with him as 
an escort to the next relay, or so long as their horses' 
strength endured, the three squadrons of Polish lancers, 
amounting to 266 men. Therefore, after a few minutes' 
reflection, he beckoned Count Wonsowicz to his side, 
and spoke to him as follows : — 

" ' Les Lanciers Polonais sont-ils prets ?' 
" ' Oui, Sire ; ils etaient tous la avant notre arrivee.' 
" ' Qu'ils montent a cheval. II faut disposer l'escorte 
autour des voitures. Nous allons partir sur-le-champ ; la 
nuit est suffisamment obscure pour que les Pusses ne nous 
voient pas. D'ailleurs il faut toujours compter sur sa 
fortune; sur le bonheur: sans cela on n' arrive jamais a 
rien.' " 

As a further measure called for by this terrible 
crisis, Napoleon ordered Count Wonsowicz and General 
Lefebvre to mount the box of his own carriage ; and 
confiding to them a pair of pistols which he drew forth 
ready loaded, he addressed to them these words, — 

" Dans le cas d'un danger certain, tuez moi plutot que 
de me laisser prendre." 

Deeply moved, Count Wonsowicz, having first 
asked the Emperor's permission, translated these words 
aloud to the Polish lancers. He was answered by a 
cry of enthusiasm. These gallant men declared that 



64 THE FEENOH EETKEAT FKOM MOSCOW. 

they would let themselves be cut to pieces sooner than 
allow the Emperor to be taken, or even approached. 

In this guise, at two in the morning, the journey- 
was resumed. Scarce were they out of Oszmiana when 
there shone forth, and above all to the left of the road, 
the watchfires of the Russian troops. The call of their 
sentinels was also distinctly heard. But the night was 
most intensely cold, the thermometer at twenty-eight 
degrees of Reaumur below zero, and, as Napoleon had 
foreseen, the Cossacks, couched close to their blazing 
logs, were reluctant to leave them in quest of an un- 
certain prey. Moreover, though their watchfires were 
seen from afar, they might themselves not distinctly 
see the long dark line of the carriages and horsemen 
which without light was wending along. In this 
manner the convoy, bearing Caesar and his fortunes, 
passed without being assailed. 

But that night of almost Siberian cold proved 
fatal to many of the Polish lancers. In attempting to 
keep pace with the carriages, their horses would slip 
and come down on the icy ground, frequently with 
broken limbs or severe wounds to the riders. Too 
many of these gallant men are thought to have evinced 
their devotion to their chief by the forfeit of their 
lives. When in the morning the convoy reached the 
relay of Kownopol, it was found that of 266 lancers who 
had started from Oszmiana, no more than thirty-six 
remained. At Rownopol, their place as escort was 
supplied by some fifty cavalry of the Neapolitan Koyal 
Guard. These also suffered severely from the frost ; 
their commander, the Duke de Rocca Romana, losing 
some fingers of both hands. 



THE FRENCH EETEEAT FROM MOSCOW. 65 

On arriving at Wilna, Napoleon did not enter the 
city, but remained for concealment in a small house of 
the suburb. He was thus enabled to confer for some 
hours with his trusted Minister, the Duke de Bassano, 
before he resumed his journey. At Wilna his danger 
from the Eussians had much diminished; at Kowno 
and beyond the Niemen it altogether ceased. By day 
and night, over snow and ice, the journey was still 
pursued. There was only now and then a halt for 
meals. Such was the speed, and so frequent on the 
other hand the break-down of the rickety vehicles, that 
Napoleon left behind the greater part of his suite, 
which did not rejoin him till at Paris. Thus he dashed 
into Warsaw one afternoon with only a single carriage. 
Great was the amazement of the Abbe de Pradt, the 
French Ambassador in the Polish capital, at suddenly 
seeing Caulaincourt appear before him and summon 
him to the presence of his sovereign at V Hotel d'Angle- 
terre. There he found Napoleon just arrived, pacing 
up and down a narrow room, while a servant-girl on 
her knees before the fire was trying in vain to blow up 
a flame from the damp and half-green wood. In a 
book published but two or three years later, M. de 
Pradt has given, perhaps with some exaggeration, a 
full account of this remarkable interview. According 
to him, Napoleon at each interval of the conversation 
repeated over and again the following phrase, since 
become so familiar to France : " Du sublime au ridicule 
il ny a quun pas ! " 

At Dresden also there was a like scene, when at 
three in the morning Count Wonsowicz roused the 



66 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

good old king from his slumbers and invited him to 
pay a visit to the Emperor in the Pima Strasse. The 
whole of that little Court, as Count Wonsowicz assures 
us, was not a little flurried at this strange event. 

" Le Eoi se levant au milieu de la xmit a la requete d'un 
ineonim, arme et vetu d'un costume singulier ; le Eoi dis- 
paraissant en chaise de loange sans dire a aucune des 
personnes de sa Cour oil il allait; e'en etait assez pour 
donner lieu a tous les commentaires, aux plus vives inquie- 
tudes. La Eeine de Saxe, soeur du Eoi Maximilien de 
Baviere, princesse deja avancee en age, fut effrayee au 
point d'avoir une attaque de nerfs." 

Much to the same effect was the surprise in the first 
town within the French territory, namely, Mayence. 
Count Wonsowicz was again despatched with a like 
message to Marshal Kellerman, Duke de Yalmy ; and 
we will leave him to relate in his own words the curious 
conversation that ensued : — ■ 

" Lorsque l'officier Polonais arriva chez le Marechal, il 
trouva ses appartements splendidement eclaires ; toute la 
societe de Mayence y etait rassemblee pour un grand bal, 
Le Marechal Kellerman fut appele; mais il recut tres 
durement celui qui se disait envoye par l'Empereur. II le 
prit d'abord pour un porteur de fausses nouvelles. 

" ' Je ne vous connais pas,' lui dit-il ; ' et je vais vous 
faire fusilier comme un imposteur.' 

" ' Vous en aurez toujours le temps, Monsieur le Mare- 
chal,' repondit sans s'emouvoir l'officier Polonais ; ' mais 
avant d'en venir la, veuillez-vous assurer de la verite de ce 
que je vous annonce ? ' 

" ' Comment,' reprit le Marechal, ' comment est-il pos- 
sible que l'Empereur soit a Mayence, et que je n'ai pas ete 
prevenu de son arrivee ? ' 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 67 

" ' Veuillez aller le lui demander, Monsieur le Marechal ; 
moi je ne suis charge que de vous annoncer son passage.' 

" Le costume tres en desordre de l'envoye Imperial avait 
au premier abord indispose le Gouverneur. II n'y voyait 
qu'un deguisement pour le tromper. II se rendit enfin, 
et partit pour aller trouver l'Empereur, tout en faisant 
garder a vue le Comte Wonsowicz, ne lui permettant de 
communiquer avec personne, et l'emmenant avec lui, 
flanque de deux gendarmes. Mais cet incident et cette 
meprise furent de courte duree. 

"L'Empereur, voyant arriver le Due de Valmy, lui dit, 
apres quelques phrases tres affectueuses : 

" 'Mon armee est perdue en grande partie ; mais soyez 
tranquille, d'ici a quelques mois j'aurai sous mes ordres 
huit cent mille baionnettes, et je prouverai a mes ennemis 
que les elements seuls pouvaient nous vaincre. J'ai eu 
tort, je 1'avoue, d'exposer mes pauvres soldats a un climat 
pareil. Mais qui ne fait pas de fautes en ce monde? 
Quand on les reconnait il faut tacher de les reparer.' " 

In proceeding onwards, even through his own 
dominions, the Emperor maintained the same incog- 
nito. On the 18th, when he expected to reach Paris, 
he stopped to dine at Chateau Thierry ; and there also 
il Jit une grande toilette afin de se presenter convenahle- 
ment a V Imperatrice. But his mischances were not yet 
at an end. Some miles further his carriage broke 
down, and Napoleon had to enter une de ces disgraeieuses 
voitures de voyage a deux immenses roues et a brancard, 
qu'on nommait alors une chaise de poste. At Meaux it 
was found that the sum assigned for the travelling 
expenses had come to an end. The Emperor, the Duke 
de Vicence, the Count Wonsowicz, and the Mameluke 
Eoustan, who since Warsaw had formed the entire 



68 THE FEENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

party, gave what money they had about them, but the 
total amounted to less than eighty francs. The Duke 
de Vicence could only apply to the postmaster for an 
advance, which fortunately was not refused him. 

At half-past eleven the same night the rustic 
vehicle — eet affreux equipage, as Count Wonsowicz 
terms it — appeared at the Grille du Carrousel. Natur- 
ally enough, it was denied admittance. But Count 
Wonsowicz, dismounting, led the officer on guard close 
to the carriage-window. 

" L'officier de garde reconnut son Souverain, et s'inclina 
avec une profonde emotion. La grille s'ouvrit alors. On 
peut se figurer quelle sensation produisit dans le palais des 
Tuileries cette arrivee inesperee. L'Empereur, une fois 
entre dans le chateau, defendit expressement qu'on fit 
aucun bruit qui put eveiller 1' Impera trice ; il se rendit 
sur-le-champ a son appartement." 

In this guise then did he, so lately the conqueror 
and arbiter of Europe, re-enter his palace, and resume 
the government of his empire. The account of his 
disasters, as comprised in the 29th bulletin, had been 
published by the Moniteur only the day before. 

If we ask the effects produced by the departure of 
Napoleon on the melancholy remnant of his troops, 
which continued its retreat from Smorgoni to Wilna, 
we shall find them described by M. de Fezensac in few 
but expressive words : — 

" Dans la situation de l'armee ce depart etait pour elle 
une nouvelle calamite. L'opinion que Ton avait du genie 
de 1'Enipereur donnait de la confiance; la crainte qu'il 
inspirait retenait dans le devoir. Apres son depart chacun 



THE FRENCH EETKEAT FROM MOSCOW. 69 

fit a sa tete ; et les ordres que donna le Eoi de Naples ne 
servirent qu'a compromettre son autorite." 

Murat, indeed, could not direct; and under such 
a chief the marshals would not obey. The large and 
rich city of Wilna, the ancient capital of Lithuania, 
had been looked to by the suffering soldiers as the 
probable term of their calamities. They counted 
every step, says M. de Fezensac, that brought them 
nearer to this long-desired haven of rest. But, alas, 
how empty the hope, how evanescent the dream ! How 
sharply were they roused from their illusion, the last 
to which they clung, when they appeared before 
Wilna, in part on the 8th, and in part on the 9th 
of December! Expected though they were, no due 
measures had been taken for their reception and relief. 
Bushing up pell-mell as they came to the narrow 
gateway, there was soon an amount of obstruction and 
confusion comparable to that on the Beresina bridges. 
Yet while the multitudes were thus pressing on each 
other with cries and yells, with bruises and with blows, 
while, in fact, great numbers had to remain the whole 
night without the city — there were all the while, to 
the right and left, open gaps through the walls, which 
no one had been stationed to point out ! 

Within the city it was much the same. There 
were ample magazines, both of provisions and of 
clothing, but no order had been made for their right 
use. The perishing soldiers would not be denied, and 
thus, for lack of distribution, there was plunder. 
Moreover, it was found that the city could not be 
maintained. Several divisions of the hostile army 



70 THE FKENCH EETEEAT FKOM MOSCOW. 

were close at hand, and the sound of their artillery 
boomed nearer and nearer. Under these circumstances 
Murat made a precipitate retreat, at four in the 
morning, with the remains of the Old Guard. In his 
hurry he appears to have given no directions for the 
guidance of the rest. Marshal Mortier heard of his 
departure only by chance, and then followed with the 
Young Guard, or what was left of it. Marshal Key, 
with a handful of heroic men, again forming the rear, 
undertook to maintain the city a few hours more. 
Immediately on his departure the Eussian troops 
poured in. Of the French, several generals, a great 
number of officers, and more than twenty thousand 
soldiers, nearly all sick or wounded, remained at Wilna, 
utterly exhausted and unable to move farther. They 
became, therefore, prisoners in the enemy's hands. 

The ruin of the army, however, was completed a 
few miles from Wilna, at a steep hill forming the left 
bank of the Wilna valley. That hill had become one 
slippery sheet of ice. The horses — for there were 
still some horses undevoured — were urged to drag up 
the remaining cannon or carriages, but they were 
urged in vain. Not one piece of artillery, and scarce 
any of the lighter vehicles, could be saved. Here, 
then, were relinquished the last resources of the army, 
its military chests, carried from W T ilna, and containing 
ten millions of francs in gold and silver coin. The 
soldiers passing by were permitted to take what they 
could, and it was a strange spectacle, writes De Fezensac, 
to see men heavily laden with gold, and yet half-dead 
with hunger. Here, too, were left "the trophies of 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 71 

Moscow," as they were termed, which had been con- 
veyed safely thus far amidst so many dangers and 
disasters — above all, the great cross of Ivan, taken 
down from the highest spire of Moscow, and designed, 
in memorial of the conquest, for the ornament of the 
Invalides at Paris. 

At Kowno, as at Wilna, no stand could be made. 
The French army, now reduced to scattered bands, 
fled, band by band, across the Memen. There were 
now only hundreds of armed and effective men upon 
the same ground where there had been hundreds of 
thousands the summer before. At Konigsberg they 
found a short respite, but no permanent halting-place 
until on the line of the Vistula — behind the ramparts 
of Dantzic and Elbing. 

The aspect of Wilna and Kowno, just before they 
were thronged with the mass of the retreating French, 
is well portrayed in a book which has had but little 
circulation in Germany, and none at all, we believe, 
in England. We allude to M. Droysen's biography 
of General York, published at Berlin in 1851. York, 
as is well kndwn, was, at the close of 1812, commander 
of the Prussian force in Courland, which acted as an 
auxiliary to France, and had Marshal Macdonald as 
immediate chief. Perplexed at the ominous rumours 
which began to prevail as to the fate of the Grande 
Armee, York secretly despatched one of his young 
officers, Baron Canitz, on an exploring mission to 
Wilna. The memoir of the Baron, as drawn up on 
his return, now lies before us in its native German, 
being given by M. Droysen in the appendix to his 



72 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

first volume; and we are here tempted to translate, 
and sometimes abridge, several of its graphic details : — 

" On the afternoon of the 4th of December I reached 
Kowno. Till then I had met scarce any one npon my 
route, and seen no traces of the war. But at Kowno the 
ruins of demolished houses, the remains of bivouac fires, 
and the dead horses on the roadside, spoke but too plainly 
of an army's line of march. The town was full of scattered 
soldiers, many sick or wounded, derived from every pos- 
sible corps, and decked with all varieties of uniform. The 
first of whom I asked my way to the post-station was a 
half-frozen Portuguese, who could speak of nothing but 
the cold. I found it almost impossible to obtain post- 
horses, but lighted, by good fortune, on a French courier 
charged with despatches, who offered to take me with him 
on my paying one-half his expenses. I gladly accepted 
his proposal, and we were off in half an hour. 

" The places we passed through were half demolished, 
and the inhabitants had fled, so that besides the French 
soldiery there was no creature to be seen. A few miles 
from Kowno we overtook a body of some hundred cavalry 
— cuirassiers and lancers — proceeding as a reinforcement 
to the Grande Armee. The horses not being rough-shod 
were constantly slipping and falling on the icy ground. 
So the men had for the most part to proceed on foot, lead- 
ing their steeds by the bridle, and expressing their dislike 
of this mode of march by a myriad of execrations. My 
courier called out without ceasing, "Agauche, mes camarades ; 
c'est un courier de VEmpereur qui doit passer ; " and in this 
manner we went through the devoted band, which, as I 
compute it, must have arrived at Wilna just in time to 
share in the general destruction. 

" Wilna, like most cities in Poland, is a strange assem- 
blage of splendid palaces and miserable huts mingled with 
each other. Its streets bore a most variegated aspect, as 



THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 73 

comprising samples and specimens of all the different corps 
which had formed la Grande Armee. Still there was a 
certain order preserved ; the Guards of the King of Naples, 
who stood sentinels at the principal doors, were not only 
trim but splendid in attire; and there were only the 
ghastly figures of the revenants des hopitaux, as they were 
termed, to remind us of the coming catastrophe. French 
ballets and comedies had been acted in the evening ; and 
French shops were open in every direction, several for 
jewelry or other articles de luxe, and all with huge French 
signs. 

"From General Knesemark I learnt the latest news. 
He told me that according to his reports the French 
cavalry and artillery were utterly destroyed — that there 
was little hope of a stand being made at or near Wilna — 
that the Emperor was on the point of taking his departure, 
and committing the command to the King of Naples. It 
was to be the general's last day at Kowno. He had been 
summoned by the Duke de Bassano, in common with his 
brethren of the corps diplomatique, to proceed at once to 
Warsaw, so that he would not be able to judge with his 
own eyes of the retreating army. 

"In company with a friend, Major Schenk, whom I 
found at Wilna, I repaired to a restaurateur, at the sign of 
the Aigle Imperial — a visit of which I stood greatly in 
need, since meals do not abound in a Polish journey. 
Never, perhaps, did any cook deserve more thoroughly 
this name of restaurateur. How many men did I see come 
in who were feeble and famished, and to all appearance 
crest-fallen and heart-broken, but who, after the long un- 
wonted comfort of a good repast, could sally forth again 
with a firm step and a cheerful mien ! Of those I spoke 
with, none made any secret of the enormous losses sus- 
tained on the retreat. But they expressed their belief 
that the Eussian army was almost as much ruined as their 
own, and that no serious resistance would be offered to the 



74 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

attempt of ceasing the retreat, and making a rally at 
Wilna. 

" This was on the 5th. On the morning of the 6th the 
agitation in the city was visibly increased ; and all who 
could find a conveyance had set out. Our host of the Aigle 
Imperial was already gone. We went to another restau- 
rateur to breakfast, at the sign of La Couronne Imperial? 
He, too, was packing up. Several officers represented to 
him that there was no sort of danger, and that he had 
better stay. ' On a des nouvelles tres consolantes de Varmee,' 
answered he ; l je n'en doute pas, mais je partirai demain a la 
pointe de jour.' Napoleon may perhaps have taken" exactly 
the same view when he stepped into his carriage at 
Smorgoni, and bad the King of Naples lead his army 
into winter quarters. 

" All through the day I saw remnants from the army 
pour in. Forms so gaunt, so ghastly, that even the direst 
dream could scarcely image them, arrived in almost an 
unbroken line, some on sledges, and some on foot. Out of 
many hundreds hardly one carried a musket or a weapon 
of any kind. Many fell down exhausted in the streets, 
and lay helpless, while the rest passed them heedlessly by. 
To see a man dying, after so many other scenes of woe, 
seemed to induce no more impression than to see a man 
drunk in a Polish fair. 

" I was assured that the Guard was expected on the 
morrow — reduced to a mere handful, and marching in 
utter disarray ; and I should have wished to judge with 
my own eyes the actual state of that proud band which I 
had beheld last June, in all its splendour, passing through 
my native land. But the officer at the post-station told 
me that he could give me no horses if I lingered ; and so I 
set out on my return that very night." 

In concluding the slight sketch of these terrible 
disasters it seems natural to inquire the total loss 



THE FKENCH KETKEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 75 

which the French sustained. M. Thiers computes 
that, of the soldiers who had crossed the Mernen, 
about 100,000 became prisoners of war, and about 
300,000 were either slain in action or died of their 
wounds, or perished from famine and cold. Vast as 
are these numbers, they appear to be fully borne out 
by specific details. Thus M. de Fezensac gives us 
the particulars of his own regiment. It had 2150 
men when it passed the Rhine, it received a reinforce- 
ment of 400 men at Moscow, one more to the same 
amount at Smolensk, and another of only 50 men at 
Wilna, making 3000 in all. "Now, of these 3000 
men," adds De Fezensac, " only 200 returned with 
me to the Vistula, and about 100 subsequently came 
back from captivity, so that our loss was 2700 out of 
3000, that is, nine-tenths." And even of these 200 
who remained in arms upon the Vistula, how many 
may have belonged to the detachments that joined 
at Smolensk or at Wilna, and that never saw Moscow ! 
The causes of this great catastrophe are by no 
means difficult to trace. Of course the rigour of the 
season forms the first. But the closer we inquire, the 
more fully shall we find confirmed the opinion of the 
Duke of Wellington, which we quoted at the com- 
mencement of this article, that the arrangements of 
Napoleon were short-sighted and defective. That 
opinion will be found developed with more details, 
and fortified by numerous instances, in another essay 
or rather series of remarks by the Duke — some notes 
which he drew up in 1826 on M. de Segur's recently 
published history of the Russian campaign. Those 



76 THE FRENCH RETREAT FROM MOSCOW. 

notes have hitherto remained in MS., but they will 
appear in the forthcoming volume of the " Wellington 
Papers," and meanwhile we have been enabled by 
the favour of the present duke to peruse them in the 
proofs. 

The Duke here observes : — ■ 

" This chapter (the second) affords another proof of 
Napoleon's extraordinary character. He had taken the 
utmost pains to ascertain the difficulty and danger of the 
enterprise which he was about to undertake ; these diffi- 
culties and dangers are represented to him from all 
quarters and in all forms. He is sensible of them, yet 
he is determined to persevere. He wants a military 
success, and he must seek for it; he is blind to every 
difficulty, or rather will not see any; and will take no 
measures to insure his success (excepting to collect a large 
French army), and most particularly none which can 
check for a moment the gratification of his hatred of 
Bernadotte. 

"It is certainly true that this young empire had all 
the disorders of old age. Here are officers making false 
reports, and a Minister concealing the truth, lest the truth 
should displease the Emperor ! " 

On the whole, then, in discussing the events of 
1812, we may presume to say that Napoleon had 
made no preparations for a military retreat. In his 
other campaigns, both before and after, that extra- 
ordinary man evinced a genius for the organization 
of an army, little inferior to his genius in the field. 
It was far otherwise in the Moscow episode. There 
the Emperor appears to have confided in his star — to 
have supposed that his former course of uninterrupted 



THE FEENCH KETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 77 

triumphs must be uninterrupted still, even though 
he should neglect the provident care by which, among 
other qualities, these triumphs were achieved. 

We would observe, however, as a fact that may 
explain — and not only explain but in a great measure 
excuse — his deficiency of arrangements at this time, 
that all through the advance from Witepsk to Moscow, 
and probably at Moscow also, Napoleon appears to 
have been in a state of feverish excitement and great 
mental disquietude. Of this curious fact there has 
recently appeared some remarkable testimony. Duroc, 
who during so long a period was admitted to his daily 
intercourse and familiar conversation, and who beyond 
all other men deserved the title of his personal friend, 
dotted down at the time, in great secrecy and only 
for himself, some notes upon the subject. Forty years 
later these notes, having come into the hands of 
M. Villemain, were published by him in the first 
part of his " Souvenirs Contemporains." We shall 
conclude this essay by transcribing them, thinking 
that they form perhaps a key to no small part of what 
ensued : — 

" 4 Aout, deux heures du matin. A pris le bain : grande 
agitation. II faut marcher, reparer vite le temps perdu ; 
nous ne pouvons pas bivouaquer eternellement dans cette 
bicoque du palais du Due de Wittemberg. 

" 5 Aout, un heure du matin. Dictee sur les mouve- 

mens des corps Que servirait de prendre Eiga? 

II faut une immense victoire, une bataille devant Moscou, 
une prise de Moscou, qui etonne le monde. 

" L'Empereur a dormi deux heures ; il m'a rnontre le 
jour deja clair a l'horizon. ' Nous avons encore,' m'a-t-il 



78 THE FKENCH EETEEAT FEOM MOSCOW. 

dit, 'du bean temps pour pres de trois mois; il m'en a 
fallu moins pour Austerlitz et Tilsit.' 

" 7 Aout. L'Empereur a ete physiquement tres souf- 
frant ; il a pris de l'opium prepare par Methivier. Duroc, 
il faut marcher ou mourir. Un Empereur meurt debout ; 
et alors il ne meurt point. Vous avez peur des Prussiens 
entre Moscou et la France ; souvenez-vous d'lena, et croyez 
encore plus a leur crainte qu'a leur haine ; mais pour cela 
il faut marcher; il faut agir. L'Empereur a souffert 
encore. II faut finir cette fievre du doute." 

We may sum up the whole, perhaps, with a forcible 
exclamation of the Duke of Wellington, as we find it 
in his Segur notes : — " It is that which strikes one as 
most extraordinary in the history of the transaction of 
our times — how much of the fate of the world depends 
upon the temper and passions of one man ! " 



II. 
LEGENDS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 5 



LEGENDS and mythical stories of yarious kinds 
have often in the progress of time gathered 
around the memories of remarkable men. But there 
is one curious fact respecting them, which has only 
of late years been, I might, perhaps, say discovered, — 
certainly, at least, acknowledged. They were formerly 
thought to have proceeded, like any other falsehoods, 
from a deliberate purpose to deceive. Now, on the 
contrary, it seems to be admitted by most persons that 
they spring up almost unconsciously, and in many 
cases with a full conviction of their truth by those 
who first composed them. 

The explanation of this the later, and, as I should 
say, the sounder, view is to be found in the following 
train of thought which we may assume to have passed 
in the mind of the credulous fabulist. The thing 
must have been so and so; therefore the thing was 
so and so. Such a man was a great hero — of course 



* Reprinted by permission from Fraser's Magazine of July, 1866. 

G 



82 LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 

then he was eight feet high. Such a man was very 
learned — of course then he had studied the Black Art. 
Such a man was a Saint — of course then we cannot 
be wrong in ascribing to him any virtue or any 
marvel. A process of reasoning like this in the 
darker ages has sufficed to transform Attila into a 
giant, Virgil into a magician, and Mahomet into what 
he certainly never claimed to be, a worker of miracles. 
Thus does wonder crowd on wonder, each succeeding 
writer adding a new circumstance, until at - last the 
true historical personage is obscured, and well-nigh 
lost to sight in a cloud of legendary lore. 

On no period of history however have these legends 
settled more closely or in greater numbers than on 
the era of Charlemagne. That great Sovereign might 
well make a powerful impression on the popular mind. 
His dominion was as extensive as that of Napoleon, 
and indeed almost conterminous with it, while the 
duration of his reign was about three-fold. The ex- 
cellence of his civil institutions enhanced the glory 
of his military exploits ; and he looms high above 
the series both of his predecessors and of his descen- 
dants. 

The life and character of Charlemagne have been 
described with full authority by Eginhard, an accom- 
plished man of letters, who knew him well, and who 
filled an office at his Court. This is in truth the only 
quite accurate and trustworthy record. But on the 
other hand, it is rather brief and summary, and might 
well appear to the next age incommensurate to the 
extent of his conquests and the lustre of his reign. 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 83 

In order to supply this popular craving there came 
forth in the eleventh century a fabulous history of 
Charlemagne, falsely ascribed to Turpin, who in the 
days of the great Emperor had been Archbishop of 
Rheims. To the same effect, but in divers forms, and 
in every variety of language, has started up a whole 
host of ballads and romances. 

Eginhard — who by the way was not in truth Egin- 
hard at all, for he always called himself and his 
contemporaries always called him Einhard or Ein- 
hardus — tells us that Charlemagne gave orders to put 
in writing "the barbaric and most ancient poems in 
which the deeds and wars of the old Kings were 
sung." The object of the great Emperor was that 
these poems might be safely transmitted to posterity ; 
and the encouragement which he thus afforded to such 
compositions was, though unconsciously, conducive to 
his own renown. Other poems in celebration of him- 
self sprung up within the next two centuries ; and 
although the great fame of Charlemagne might fairly 
rest on his authentic and admitted deeds ; yet cer- 
tainly, in the eyes of our forefathers, and perhaps even 
in our own, his figure has seemed enormously enhanced 
and magnified when contemplated through the haze 
of fiction. 

On no point I think has that fiction been so rife 
as on the many legends relating to the twelve peers 
of Charlemagne, or, as they are sometimes called, his 
Paladins. But Charlemagne in real fact had no peers 
at all. The idea is quite imaginary. It appears to 
take its rise from the supposition that every man of 



84 LEGENDS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 

might ought to be attended by certain followers of com- 
mensurate renown ; and the gospel history may perhaps 
have suggested the number twelve as especially solemn 
and sacred. Thus, in like manner, the Spaniards 
have an epic on Alexander the Great which dates 
from the thirteenth century, and which represents the 
Macedonian conqueror also as having around him his 
twelve peers.* 

As to the name of Paladin it has been, like so 
many others, elucidated by the skill and learning of 
Ducange. He shows from quotations that the d in 
the word is a later corruption of t, and that the original 
term was " Palatin," not " Paladin ; " the signification 
being " one that belongs to the palace ; " a chosen 
champion, or, if you prefer it, a guardsman of the 
Sovereign. 

Charlemagne himself in some legends is raised to 
the stature of a giant. His life by the pseudo-Turpin 
declares that he was at least eight feet high. In 
other legends he is exalted to the dignity of a Saint- 
Such at all events was the idea entertained of him 
by Joan of Arc. She said to Charles VII., at Chinon : 
— " I tell you, gentle Dauphin, that God has pity on 
you, your realm, and your people, for St. Louis and 
St. Charlemagne are on their knees before Him, and 
offer supplications for you." 

But the event of this reign in which all the poetry, 
all the legends, all the pseudo-histories, may be said 



*■ This is the " Alexandre* " of Juan Lorenzo Segura, a poem of 
above ten thousand lines. See Mr. Ticknor's " History," vol. i. p. 54. 



LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 85 

to culminate is the retreat of the French from Spain, 
attended by the rout of Eoncesvalles and the fall of 
Roland. The real facts are to be gathered from two 
passages of Eginhard ; the one in his " Life of Charle- 
magne," and the other in his " Annals " under the date 
778. It appears then that Charlemagne being invited to 
Spain by Ibn Araby, one of his Moorish allies, marched 
over the Pyrenees, took Pamplona, and advanced to 
the Ebro, under the walls of Saragoza. There he 
received hostages in token of submission from several 
of the Saracen princes, and so far had been successful 
in his object. But on his march homewards his rear- 
guard was assailed and put to the sword in one of 
the Pyrenean passes by an armed body of Spanish 
Basques. " In which conflict," adds Eginhard, " there 
fell, with very many others, Anselm, Count of the 
Palace, and Roland, Prgefect of the Marches of Brit- 
tany." * I may remark that the name of Roland is 
here given in the truly barbaric form of Hruodlandus. 
Much more important is the note here appended by 
M. Teulet, the latest and best editor of Eginhard. 
" This passage," he says, " is the only one among the 
early historians in which any mention is made of the 
famous Roland who plays so great a part in all the 
Carlovingian romances." 

On this scanty groundwork then has arisen, as I 
may term it, an air-built and fantastic castle. In the 
first place Roland is made the nephew of Charlemagne 
— a relationship which would certainly not be un- 

* Eginhard, " Opera," vol. i. p. 32, ed. Teulet. 



86 LEGENDS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 

noticed by Eginhard if it had been real. Next he 
is invested with the trusty sword Durandal, with which 
he not only demolishes his enemies, but on one occa- 
sion, when pursuing the Moslem, cleaves a pass through 
the Pyrenees which towers above le Cirque de Gavarni, 
and is still called la breche de Roland. Moreover he 
had a horn scarcely less tremendous, which he sounded 
in the rout of Koncesvalles to apprise Charlemagne 
of his danger, and which was heard by the Emperor 
at a wonderful distance. Further still the romancers 
are so obliging as to provide him with a bride, the 
Lady Alda, who remains at Paris, and is awaiting his 
return from Spain. 

As it appears to me, there is here a striking simi- 
larity between the Eoland of France and the William 
Wallace of Scotland. The exploits of both are unre- 
corded in the meagre chronicles of the time. These 
exploits live only in tradition and in song. But taken 
as a whole they have, in my judgment, a just claim 
to be believed. All that tradition has done is to 
confound the elates and exaggerate the circumstances. 
We may be sure that so great and so general a fame 
could not in either case have arisen had not the living 
hero impressed his image on the public mind. I 
should therefore entirely agree with Sismondi, who 
in the second volume of the " History of France " con- 
tends, that although Eoland may not have been 
pre-eminent at Koncesvalles, he must have performed 
achievements and acquired renown in former years, 
when warring against the Saracens of Spain. 

Many other characters of Koncesvalles, though 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 87 

familiar to the minstrel, are wholly unknown to the 
historian. Such are Oliver and other Paladins in the 
French romances. Such are Durandarte and Calaynos 
in the Spanish ballads. But above all in frequency 
of mention stands Ganelon, the arch-traitor, who misled 
Roland, in the mountain passes and caused the "dolorous 
rout." M. Genin, a high authority on the Carlovin- 
gian period, has discussed the subject of this name,*" 
conceiving it to be derived from an Archbishop of 
Sens, also called Ganelon, who in 859 was guilty of gross 
ingratitude to his Sovereign and benefactor Charles 
the Bald. This seems to me a wholly unfounded 
idea. The ingratitude of Archbishop Ganelon did not 
lead to any such striking or fatal action as would at 
all impress itself on the popular imagination ; and 
moreover it appears that the Emperor and the prelate 
were reconciled together before the close of the same 
year. JSTor is the sacerdotal character preserved in the 
legendary Ganelon, as one would expect it to be if 
an Archbishop had been in truth its prototype. 

I consider it therefore very far more probable that 
Ganelon may have been the real appellation of the 
treacherous chief of the Navarrese or Spanish Basques 
who assailed the rear-guard of Charlemagne. Nor 
does it seems to me at all surprising that Eginhard 
in his very summary account of the transaction, and 
omitting even the name of Roncesvalles, should omit 
also the name of any leader on the enemy's side. 

Be this as it may, however, there is no doubt 

* " Chanson de Roland," Introduction, p. xxv. 



88 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

that within two centuries and a half from the death 
of Charlemagne the songs and ballads founded on the 
tragical tale of Roncesvalles had grown popular in 
France. One proof of this — connected also with the 
history of England — is given by Robert Wace in his 
".Roman de Rou." He tells us that as the Normans of 
William the Conqueror marched onwards to the battle 
of Hastings they had in their front ranks a valiant 
minstrel who from his deeds of arms was surnamed 
Taillefer, " the hewer of iron." Taillefer then in the 
front ranks went singing, as the old French thymes 
declare it — 

" De Carlemaigne et de Eolant, 
Et (TOlivier et des vassaus, 
Qui rnorurent en Kainscevaux." 



Or, 



" Of Charlemagne and of Roland, 
And of Oliver and the vassals, 
Who died in Boncevanx." * 



Nor were the ballads of Roncevaux less in vogue 
among the Spaniards. Of this I may give a striking 
example, though of a later period, derived from the 
very masterpiece of Spanish genius. 

There is a passage in the second part of "Don 
Quixote,"! where the knight of La Mancha and his 
squire repair to Toboso in quest of the peerless Dul- 
cinea. There — 

" a country labourer passed them going out before daybreak 
to plough, and as he came along he was singing the old 
ballad which says — 

* See Ge'nin, "Introduction a la Chanson de Eoland,'* p. lxiv. 
f Part ii. chap. ix. 



LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 89 

' 111 ye fared, ye Frenchmen, 
In the chace of EoncevaL' 



a i 



Let me die,' said Don Quixote, hearing the ballad, 
' if we have any good success to-night ; dost thou hear 
what the peasant sings, Sancho ? ' " 

The ballad thus quoted by Cervantes as sung 
by a clown in La Mancha, is given by him (so far 
as regards the opening lines), with some slight verbal 
differences from its printed form in the "Romancero" 
— differences which, arising, as of course, from tradi- 
tionary recitation, are of no particular account. It 
has been rendered into English verses by Mr. Lock- 
hart, under the title of " The Admiral Guarinos." 
And here I cannot but pause for a moment to com- 
memorate the admirable spirit and brilliancy with 
which Mr. Lockhart has translated — or rather in many 
cases not exactly translated but rather paraphrased 
and new-formed — these ancient Spanish ballads. My 
own warmth of feeling may indeed mislead me when 
I mention a friend of great intimacy and of cherished 
memory, now passed away. But I would desire you 
to consider how strong on this point is the testimony 
of an American gentleman, Mr. Ticknor. In his ex- 
cellent book — " The History of Spanish Literature " — ■ 
Mr. Ticknor observes of these translations of Lockhart, 
that in his judgment they form "a work of genius 
beyond any of the sort known to me in any language." * 

If indeed I may be permitted to adduce a single 
instance in proof of this great superiority I shall be 
content with one, the concluding stanza of this very 

* " History of Spanish Literature," vol. i. p. 115, ed. 1863. 



90 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

ballad on the Admiral Guarinos. It relates how 
Guarinos — not a Moslem as you might imagine from 
his title, but one of Charlemagne's captains, and made 
a prisoner at Koncesvalles — after seven years' durance 
being by a fortunate accident mounted once more on 
his favourite war-horse, and grasping once more his 
ancient lance, makes his way from Spain. I will give 
you first a translation as literal as I can make it of 
the Spanish lines, and next Mr. Lockhart's version. 

Here is a literal translation of the concluding 
Spanish lines : 

" The Moors who looked upon this 
All with one accord sought to slay him ; 
But Guarinos, as became a brave man, 
Began forthwith to fight 
With the Moors, who were so many 
That they might have darkened the sun. 
In such guise then did he fight 
That he was able to set himself free, 
And to reach once again his own land, 
His native soil of France. 
Great honour there they showed him, 
When they thus saw him return." 

How incomparably finer, how far more abounding 
in life and fire, is the corresponding stanza of Mr. 
Lockhart : 

"With that Guarinos, lance in rest, against the scoffer rode, 
Pierced at one thrust his envious breast, and down his 

turban trode. 
Now ride, now ride, Guarinos, nor lance nor rowel spare, 
Slay, slay, and gallop for thy life, the land of France lies 

there ! " 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 91 

But let me make myself clearly understood. While 
I think that the Spanish lines which close " The 
Admiral Guarinos" are extremely poor and tame, I 
am far indeed from applying that character in general 
to the Spanish ballads, or other lyric pieces. On the 
contrary, many amongst them possess a natural charm, 
an inborn simplicity and grace, and sometimes also 
an exquisite tenderness which cannot be too highly 
praised, and which seem almost to defy the power of 
translation. As combining all these qualities I might 
mention, for instance, the little poem beginning " En 
los tiempos que me vi," which is the original of Lock- 
hart's " Yalladolid," and one other, " La nina Morena," 
which is the original of " Zara's Ear-rings." In some 
of these cases, however, the Spanish poem is marred 
by later interpolations, as Depping considers them, or, 
as I should rather say, by an original defect in the 
couleur locale, as the French term it. Thus, in " Zara's 
Ear-rings," the Moorish maiden speaks of herself 
attending mass, a rite of course, peculiar to the 
Christians ; and also of admiring the rich brocade of 
a marquis, a title never known among her countrymen. 

Excellent as are undoubtedly these translations by 
Lockhart, taken as a whole, there are yet some few 
cases in which they have been even surpassed. Thus 
there is another fine ballad derived from the age of 
Charlemagne, " Lady Alda's Dream," Lady Alda being 
the fabulous bride of the scarcely less fabulous Eoland. 
Of this, Mr. Ticknor observes that in its English dress 
Lockhart must yield the palm to another most accom- 
plished man who is still preserved to us ; I mean the 



92 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

former Governor of Canada, Sir Edmnnd Head. In 
this ballad Lady Alda, being left at Paris with her 
train, has a dream of a falcon overpowered by an eagle. 
One of her damsels seeks to interpret this dream in 
an auspicious sense. But I will leave Sir Edmund 
Head to continue the tale : 

" ' Thou art the falcon, and thy knight is the eagle in his 

pride, 
As he comes in triumph from the wars, and pounces on 

his bride.' 
The maidens laughed, but Alda sighed and gravely shook 

her head : 
' Full rich,' quoth she, ' shall thy guerdon be, if thou 

the truth hast said.' 
'Tis morn ; her letters stained with blood the truth too 

plainly tell, 
How in the chace of Bonceval Sir Roland fought and fell."* 

But I have not yet done with the Admiral Guari- 
nos. In the passage which I read to you from " Don 
Quixote," you will observe how Cervantes makes his 
hero declare that he can expect no good fortune that 
day, since it had begun by the singing of a ballad 
upon Koncesvalles. It appears then that the singing 
of a ballad upon Boncesvalles was deemed of ill 
augury among Spaniards. On the other hand, since, 
as I have lately shown you, the soldiers of William 
the Conqueror marched forward to the battle of 

* The Lady Alda reappears in one at least of the Chansons de 
Geste, where she is mentioned as the sister of Sir Oliver : 

" Et si vient belle Aude, la soreur Olivier." 

" Gui de Bourgogne," p. 39, ed. 1859. 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 93 

Hastings singing another of these ballads upon Ron- 
cesvalles, we may conclude that it was deemed of good 
augury among Frenchmen. Is not this a strange fact ? 
— I think not hitherto noticed. Here are the songs 
on the rout of Eoncesvalles held to be ill augury 
among the supposed descendants of the victors, and 
of good augury among the supposed descendants of the 
vanquished ! Surely this is the very reverse of what 
on any pre-conceived idea we might expect to find. 

In English poetry we find the rout of Eoncesvalles 
not unfrequently mentioned. There is in the first 
book of " Paradise Lost " a reminiscence — no doubt 
high-toned and sonorous, but a little misty — in which 
Milton ranks not only the famous Roland, but the 
great Emperor himself among the slain : 

" When Charlemagne with all his peerage fell by Fonta- 
rabia." 

Coming to later times, we find a pathetic ballad 
by Matthew Gregory Lewis, entitled "Durandate and 
Belerma," for which he is only in some part indebted 
to the Spanish. It begins as follows : 

" Sad and fearful is the story 
Of the Eoncevalles fight ; 
On that fatal field of glory 

Perished many a gallant knight." 

Nor can you have forgotten the beautiful opening 
of that poem, one of the very finest of its class, which 
commemorates the death of the Black Prince at Bor- 
deaux, and which Sir Walter Scott has interwoven 
with the novel of " Rob Roy : " 



94 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

" for the voice of that wild horn 
On Fontarabian echoes borne, 

The dying hero's call ; 
That told imperial Charlemagne 
How Paynim sons of swarthy Spain 

Had wrought his champion's fall." 

Pass we to Italian. Dante has a passage very 
similar to Milton's, in which he refers to " the dolorous 
rout," la dolorosa rotta, and to the sounding of the 
terrible horn.* It is remarkable that in the same 
place Dante calls the enterprise of Charlemagne " the 
saintly deed," la santa gesta — a phrase derived, as 
I conceive, from a later period — the Crusades — when 
the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre suggested the idea 
of every conflict with the Moslem as a holy war. 

But in Italy the legends of Charlemagne did not 
merely, as in England, give rise to some passing 
allusion or to some imitative song. On the contrary 
they produced two great epic poems, the epic of 
Boyardo and the epic of Ariosto, both having for their 
hero the brave Boland, or as the Italians call him, 
Orlando. 

The poem of Boyardo, founded on an imaginary 
siege of Paris by the Saracens, is now very little read, 
at least beyond his own country. But the few among 
us who are qualified to judge, have judged him very 
favourably. Thus speaks Mr. Hallam : 

" The ' Orlando Inamorato ' of Boyardo has hitherto not 
received that share of renown which seems to be its due, 
overpowered by the splendour of Ariosto's poem." f 

* " Inferno," canto xxxi. 

f "Introduction to the Literature of Europe,'' vol. i. p. 313. 



LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 95 

Ariosto's poem has indeed cast into the shade 
nearly all other poems of romantic fiction on his side 
the Alps. So much was it read and relished by the 
Italians as to reflect a share of its own popularity on 
the older Carlovingian legends, out of which it sprung. 

This Italian appreciation, from whatever cause 
arising, of the Carlovingian legends, may be proved 
by some slight but significant examples. Thus is it 
not curious that the common Italian word which means 
"to deceive," ingannare, is held to be derived from 
the name of Ganelon, or shortly, Gan, the arch-traitor 
at Eoncesvalles ? 

Thus, again, many a wayfarer on the old and 
beautiful post-road — seldom, I fear, to be re-travelled 
— from Florence to Rome, by way of Terni, may have 
noticed to his left, perched on one of the summits of 
the Apennines, the decaying town of Spello. One of 
its gates bears, it seems, a piece of mediseval sculpture, 
with an inscription in honour of Orlando. They are 
marked by the grossness of a less cultivated age ; and 
I cannot fully explain them. It may suffice for my 
purpose to say that they are intended to commemorate 
the hero's gigantic size and warlike prowess.* 

In France, the poems belonging to the Carlovingian 
cycle are very numerous, and some of considerable 
length. They were called " Chansons de G-este," an old 
French word derived from the Latin Gesta, so that 
the meaning is : " Songs of heroic deeds." One of 
the chief of these is the " Chanson de Roland," having 

* They are described at length by M. Genin, "Chanson de 
Eoland," Introduction, p. xxi. 



96 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

for its author Turolcl or Theroulde, and for its date, 
as is probable, the eleventh century. The last and 
best edition of it was in the year 1851, by M. Genin, 
who prefixed an ably written and interesting intro- 
duction, to which in my present essay I am much 
beholden. 

M. Genin, in the true spirit of a commentator, 
ascribes great poetical merit and beauty to the work 
which he has edited. Such is also the opinion of a 
gentleman in this country, Mr. Ludlow, who in 1865 
published two volumes of the " Popular Epics of the 
Middle Ages." Mr. Ludlow there says that he considers 
the Song of Roland " the masterpiece of French epic 
poetry." * For my own part, I cannot concur in these 
praises. So far as I have read in the Song of Roland, 
I have found it very tiresome reading, and discovered 
no trace of poetical beauties. Its value, as it seems 
to me, is as illustrating the temper and the manners 
of the time ; and of these I shall now proceed to offer 
one or two examples. 

In the fifth book of the " Chanson de Roland " is an 
account of the final conflict under the walls of Sara- 
goza. We find the " Amiralz " or Emir before it 
commences invoking his false gods, calling in one 
breath upon Apollo and Mahomet, and vowing to each 
an image in fine gold. And after the city is taken 
the poet continues in a passage which may serve to 
show the idea of liberty of conscience as current in 
that age : 

* See vol. i. p. 363. 



LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 97 

" The Emperor lias Saragoza taken ; 

A thousand Frenchmen search through the city, 

Its synagogues, and its Mahoundries (Blalmmeries) ; 

Holding mallets of iron and hatchets, 

They break the images and the idols. 

The Bishops meanwhile bless the waters, 

And lead the pagans to the baptistery. 

If any one should gainsay great Charles, 

He is hanged, or burned, or slain. 

More than one hundred thousand are baptized 

And made good Christians ; all but the Queen — 

She is led away a captive to fair France, 

That she may be converted by love." 

The authors of these poems were disposed to follow 
a good old Oriental precedent. When in the East one 
of the " Arabian Nights "or some other tale of wonder 
is recited, it is "usual for the reciter to stop short at 
the most interesting period, and declare that he will 
not finish the story unless a piece of money be put 
down by every person present. Just so in these 
" Chansons de G-este." Thus in "Huon de Bordeaux," 
there is a pause after five thousand lines, when Huon 
is just about to encounter the giant in his castle, and 
the minstrel says — I will translate the lines : 

" Oh mighty Segnors, I am sure you see full plain 

That it is near vespers, and that I am weary. 

****** 

Let me then go and drink, for such is my desire. 

****** 

But do you return to-morrow, after dinner, 

And let me pray each of you to bring with him 

A maille (a halfpenny) tied up in a fold of his shirt, 

H 



98 LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 

For there is little liberality in these Poitevines ; 
Miserly and mean was lie who first had them made, 
Or who first gave them to the courteous minstrel ! " * 

Poitevines, -let me explain, are a very small French 
coin, so called because they were first coined in Poitou. 
Small as they were, however, it was found worth while 
to counterfeit them, for we find in old French the 
word Poitevineur as applied to the maker of false 
Poitevines.] 

But I come back to the minstrel in " Huon de Bor- 
deaux." It would seem that his hearers on the morrow 
had neglected to bring in their shirts the much-de- 
sired mailles. Therefore after some five hundred lines 
of further recitation, the minstrel breaks forth again : 

" Take yon notice, so may God give me health, 
I will at once pnt an end to my song : 
I will excommunicate on my own authority, 
Also by the power of Auberon and his rank, 
All those who shall not open their purses and give to my 
wife ! " % 

Auberon, I need not say, is the old French form 
of the German or the English Oberon. But I may 
add that in the course of my reading I have met with 
this name Auberon in the French form upon only two 
occasions, first in the legend of the Fairies, and next 
in the pedigree of the Earls of Carnarvon. 

The story in this " Chanson de Geste," " Huon de 
Bordeaux," is substantially the same as that in the 

* " Huon de Bordeaux," p. 148, ed. 1860. 

f Roquefort, " Glossaire de la Langue Romane " (sub voce). 

J " Huon de Bordeaux," p. 164. 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 99 

romantic poem the "Oberon" of Wieland. But its 
recital is extremely rude and bold, and it seems still 
more so when contrasted with the masterpiece of the 
graceful German. 

One of its peculiarities is as to the parentage of 
Oberon, which it states at the outset in some lines as 
follows : 

" Know ye that Auberon was son of Julius Csesar, 

Who reigned in Hungary, a savage land, 

Who held Austria also, and its inheritance. 

Moreover, he held court in Constantinople, 

And there built walls seven leagues in length, 

Which are standing at this very day. 
****** 

His son, then, was Auberon, the noble knight, 
Who was only three feet in his stature, 
But was a fairy, as you ought to know." 

A publication of these " Chansons de Geste," under 
the name of " Les Anciens Poetes de la Erance," was 
begun in 1859, with the liberal patronage of the Im- 
perial Government, and under the able direction of M. 
Guessard. In 1859, and the subsequent year, there were 
five volumes of this series published belonging to the 
Carlo vingian cycle. Several more have more recently 
appeared, and it is announced on the flyleaf that to 
complete that cycle no less than forty volumes in all 
will be required. I hope, however, that this only too 
liberal promise may not be carried out. The few 
volumes already given to the world seem to me suffi- 
cient to satisfy even the most craving curiosity. There 
is little variety in the stories, and none at all in the 



100 LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 

style. The poetical beauties, if indeed any exist, are 
at all events but thinly scattered ; and the sole value 
of these works lies as I conceive in the glimpses which 
they now and then afford of the manners and feelings 
of the age of chivalry during which they were com- 
posed. 

Those glimpses are not very favourable. The 
knights and Paladins, though properly held forth as 
fearless, appear in at least an equal degree ferocious. 
Moderation in conquest, and mercy to the vanquished, 
are seldom to be ranked among their virtues. The 
prelates are represented not as ministers of the God 
of Peace, but rather as doughty champions, seeking 
to kill as many Saracens as possible. For example, 
we find in " Gaufrey," a French chief, Berart, address 
the Archbishop of Eheims as follows : 

" ' Turpin, Sir Archbishop, be a knight to-day ; 
It is a trade in which you are already skilled. 
Let you and me try our might against the pagans ! ' 
And Turpin made answer : ' So let it be, 
I shall read them a very dolorous psalm-book, 
One cannot every day be reading texts and versicles ; 
Times come when one should strike with one's trusty 
steel ! ' " 

So then Berart and the Archbishop rushing forward 
deal fierce blows upon the enemy : 

" Of Saracens they made more than one hundred fall, 
Who will not stand up again either in March or in 
February." * 

* " Gaufrey," p. 196, ed. 1859. 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 101 

As to the ladies, I may cite also from " G-aufrey " 
the description of Flordespifie, who is represented as 
a pattern princess : 

'.' Her age was but fourteen years and a half: 

She knew well how to speak Latin, and she understood 

Eomane ; 
She knew well how to play at tables (or draughts) and 

chess ; 
And as to the course of the stars and shining moon, 
She knew more than any woman living in this age." * 

The princesses were no credit to this excellent 
training. Not only did they on occasion bear arms 
and strike blows like the Bradamant of Ariosto, but 
they too frequently appear both treacherous and cruel. 
Thus, in " Fierabras," one young lady dreading some 
evil machinations from her aged governess, lures her 
close to a palace window, and then makes a sign to 
her chamberlain behind, who flings the matron out 
of window into the sea, where she is drowned. The 
same princess, the beautiful Floripas, is afterwards 
consulted by her father, the Emir, as to the disposal 
of some French knights, his prisoners : 

" ' So tell me then, my daughter, what counsel you give 

me.' 
' Sir,' said Floripas, ' hearken to my words : 
Have their feet and their limbs cut off, 
And burn them in a fire outside the city.' 
' Daughter,' said the Emir, ' you have spoken right 

well.' " | 

* " Gaufrey," p. 55. f " Fierabras," pp. 67, 83. 



102 LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 

These gentes pucelles cannot by any means be ac- 
cused of carrying to excess their feelings of maiden 
reserve. When Floripas becomes enamoured of Gui 
de Bourgogne, she does not scruple to ask his hand 
in marriage. Gui at first objects, saying, that he will 
take no wife except from the choice of Charlemagne. 
But Floripas rejoins : 

" I swear by Mahomet, that if you will not take me 
I will have you all hanged and waving in the wind." 

And upon this Gui very naturally yields.* 

In view of this auspicious event we find that 
Floripas consents to adopt the Christian faith. We 
cannot say, however, that her ideas of female propriety 
are in consequence very much improved. She has 
to undergo a siege in one of her castles with the 
knights who were recently her father's prisoners ; and 
although they have no fear that the donjon will be 
taken, they apprehend a wearisome blockade. Upon 
this Floripas has an expedient for beguiling the time : 

'-' I have with me five maidens of right noble birth, 
What can I say more ? Let each knight take a paramour, 
Then so long as we are here, we shall lead a joyous life." 

This proposal finds great favour among the five 
knights : 

" ' Certes,' answered Eoland, ' you have spoken courtesy, 
Never yet saw I a maiden of such noble behaviour.' " j 

The devotion expressed in these " Chansons de 



* "Fierabras,"p. 85. 

f Ibid. p. 118. Nearly the same words are ascribed to Floripas 
in an earlier passage, p. 69 



LEGENDS OF CHARLEMAGNE. 103 

Geste " is indeed of the most grovelling kind, and 
worthy of the darkest ages. It scarcely soars above the 
worship of the negro on the coast of Guinea for his 
fetish, adoring it when he is prosperous, and threatening 
or even maltreating it when he thinks that it does not 
yield him due protection. I will give two instances 
from this same poem of "Fierabras," the one as applied 
to a Mahometan, and the other to a Christian prince. 
First, then, of the Emir with whom we have already 
made acquaintance as the father of Floripas. Being 
worsted in battle, he exclaims : 

" Ah, Mahomet ! Sir, how you have forgotten me ! 

Ill love have you shown me this day. 

If ever I return in safety to Spain, 

You shall be so beaten in the ribs and sides 

That there is no man in the world but will pity you ; 

And I shall hold you more vile than any dead dog." 

Let us come next to the mighty Emperor Charle- 
magne himself: 

" 'St. Mary, our Lady,' said Charles of the haughty aspect, 

' Protect Oliver, so that he may not be killed or taken; 

For, by my father's sword, if he were slain, 

In no monastery of France nor yet of other lands 

Should priest or clerk be any more ordained : 

I would cast down both crucifix and altar ! ' " * 

Charlemagne himself appears wholly transfigured 
in these " Chansons de Geste." First he is represented 
as in extreme old age. Thus in the opening passage 
of " Huon de Bordeaux," he is made to say that he was 
a hundred years old at the birth of his eldest son 

* See these two passages in the " Fierabras," pp. 175, 28. 



104 LEGENDS OF CHAKLEMAGNE. 

Chariot, who is already grown up to manhood. Thus, 
again, in " Doon de Mayence," we are told that Doon 
and Charlemagne were born on the same day,* and 
yet Charlemagne survived to be also the contem- 
porary of a grandson of Doon, no other than the traitor 
Ganelon. 

In conformity with the idea of decrepid age, the 
"Chansons de Geste" no longer hold forth Charlemagne 
as the wise and mighty sovereign, such as he is shown 
both in the earlier fictions, and in authentic history. 
On the contrary, he is represented as feeble and fretful, 
timorous and wavering, and bearded even to his face 
by his bolder Paladins. There is among several others, 
one curious dialogue of this kind in " Gui de Bour- 
gogne," the scene being laid in Spain. The great 
Emperor is so nettled by a taunt from Koland, that 
he nearly, says the poet, struck him with his glove 
across the nose : 

" ' Sir,' so spoke Oliver, ' you are much to blame, 
And I swear that I will not let seven days pass by 
Before I begin my march homewards to France.' 

# •%■ ■& •%■ ■& # 4* 

' By my head,' quoth Eoland, ' I will do the same. 
Let us leave this old man, who is wholly besotted, 
And may a hundred thousand devils possess him ! ' " j 

The constant and as it were systematic depreciation 
of Charlemagne in these later poems might well sur- 
prise us. Perhaps it is best explained by remembering- 
how, since the time of Charlemagne, the great feuda- 

* " Doon de Mayence," p. 162. f " Gui de Bourgogne," p. 33. 



LEGENDS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 105 

tories of the Crown had succeeded in depressing both 
his own descendants and the first kings of the suc- 
ceeding dynasty. A feeble monarch surrounded by 
powerful and overbearing vassals, might seem, at least 
to the dependents of the latter, the most eligible 
form of government. Hence it would be natural for 
them to suppose that in the time of the far-famed 
Emperor also a like system had prevailed. The poet 
makes Roland address to Charles the Great the same 
terms as the Comte de Yermandois may really have 
addressed to Charles the Simple. 

Besides the " Chansons de Geste " there exists a 
wholly separate class of poems relative to Charlemagne, 
which is made known to us in some detail by M. Louis 
Moland in his " Origines Litteraires de la France." These 
poems belong to the literature and were prompted by 
the spirit of the first Crusades. Assuming a pilgrimage 
to the Holy Land as amongst the highest of earthly 
duties, and taking for granted that the mighty Charle- 
magne could not have neglected that sacred obligation, 
they represent him as visiting both Constantinople 
and Jerusalem in company with his twelve peers. The 
principal composition of this class, extending to nearly 
nine hundred lines, dates from the twelfth century. 
There is a transcript of it in the fifteenth, which is 
preserved at the British Museum, and which is illus- 
trated with admirable skill. It contains for example, 
on the verso of one of the first folio pages, a superb 
miniature representing John Talbot, the first and 
famous Earl of Shrewsbury, who, on his knees, is 



106 LEGENDS OF CHAELEMAGNE. 

supposed to present this very volume to Queen Mar- 
garet of Anjou.* 

It was from this transcript at the British Museum 
that the poem was published for the first time in 1836, 
by a French gentleman well known in antiquarian 
literature, M. Francisque Michel. Fully sufficient 
extracts, however, will be found in the work of M. 
Moland. 

I will here translate the lines describing what 
Charlemagne found in the temple of Jerusalem, 

" He entered a church of marble, richly painted. 

There stood an altar of renowned sanctity : 

At this Christ had chaunted the Mass, and His Apostles 

also. 
And the twelve stalls are still there entire, 
The thirteenth in the midst, sealed and closed. 
Charles came in, rejoicing at his heart. 
The twelve peers took their seats on both sides, 
But Charles took his seat in the midst. 
No man ever sat there before him ! " f 

Such then were the legends of Charlemagne. I 
certainly cannot commend them to my hearers as a 
rich and fertile field from which an abundant harvest 
may be gathered in. They rather, on the contrary, 
resemble some rude moorland, or some thicket full 
of briars, upon which, nevertheless, a few berries may 
be found. Dropping metaphors, I would say that 
while I am unable to discern in these poems any of 

* At the British Museum, marked " Bibl. Keg," 15, E. vi. It was 
published by Mr. Pickering in 1836 — not 1846, as M. Moland 
erroneously states. 

f See this passage in the " Origines Litteraires," p. 101. 



LEGENDS OF' CHARLEMAGNE 107 

the beauties ascribed to them by their more ardent 
commentators, and while I think that their stories 
are for the most part ill-contrived and destitute of 
interest, I yet conceive that they afford very striking- 
illustrations — and the more striking because wholly 
undesigned — of the customs and the feelings in the 
" age of chivalry " — which was never very chivalrous 
in the modern sense of the term. 



III. 
THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS.* 



ALL Biblical students have long since been aware 
that the Common Era, computing events from 
the Nativity of Christ, and fixed in the 753rd year 
from the foundation of Eome, is altogether un- 
trustworthy. It was first devised by Dionysius, an 
abbot of the sixth century, and first brought into 
general use under the Carlovingian Kings. But, how- 
ever well it might pass muster in an uncritical age, 
a very slight examination sufficed to show that it 
was wholly at variance with the first chapters of St. 
Matthew's Gospel. This a very few words will make 
plain. We may deduce from Josephus that Herod the 
Great died in the spring of the year 4 before Christ 
according to the Dionysian Era.f Taking then into 
account the Flight into Egypt, and the Massacre of 



* 1. Das Geburtsjalir Christi; geschiehtlich-chronologische Untersuch- 
ungen von A. W. Zumpt. Leipzig, 1869. 

2. Fasti Sacri, or a Key to the Chronology of the Neiv Testament. 
By Thomas Lewin, Esq., of Trinity College, Oxford, M.A., F.S.A. 
London, 1865. 

f " Ant. Jud.," lib. xvii. c. 8. See the Essay by M. Freret in the 
" Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions," vol. xxi. p. 278. 



112 THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

the Innocents, as recorded by St. Matthew, it is im- 
possible to place the Nativity of Christ later than five 
years before the period that is commonly assigned. 

Thus far there is no difficulty. Nor is there any 
other connected with chronology in the whole first 
Gospel. But on passing to the third, we find ourselves 
greatly perplexed. St. Luke tells us at his outset that 
his narrative begins " in the days of Herod, the King 
of Judaea." When, however, he comes to the taxing 
of the Roman empire, or at least of the province of 
Judaea, which brought Joseph and Mary to be taxed 
at Bethlehem, he makes mention of Cyrenius, more 
properly according to the Roman form Quirinius, or, 
it' we desire to be most accurate of all, Quirinus. The 
words of St. Luke in this passage are rendered as 
follows in our Authorized Version : — "And this taxing 
was first made when Cyrenius was Governor of Syria." 

It is at this point that our perplexities begin. We 
learn from St. Matthew that, upon the death of Herod, 
his son Archelaus was appointed to reign in Judaea in 
his room.* We learn from Josephus that, after ruling 
for not quite ten years, Archelaus was deposed and 
banished by the Emperor Augustns.f Then, and then 
only, that is, in the year 6 of the Common Era, Judaea 
was reduced to a Roman province, and Pnblius 
Quirinus, who was sent over as Governor of Syria, 
proceeded to take in hand the business of the census. 
Or, as Josephus states it, "Moreover, Quirinus came 
himself into Judaea, which was now added to Syria 

* Matt., c. ii. verse 22. 

f " Ant. Jud.," lib. xvii. c. 15 ; and " Bell. Jud.," lib. ii. c. 7. 



THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 113 

to take an account of their substance and dispose of 
Archelaus's money." * 

It would seem, then, at first sight, as though St. 
Luke had placed the birth of our Lord some ten or 
twelve years later than the date which other and equal 
authorities compel us to assign. 

But supposing this difficulty solved — and we will 
presently show how many attempts have been made to 
solve it — there is still a subsequent text which is far 
from being clear. St. Luke goes on to give a precise 
date — the only precise date, we may observe in passing, 
that is given by any one of the four Evangelists. He 
adduces "the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius 
Caesar, Pontius Pilate being Governor of Judaea." 
Now, Augustus, having died in his own month of 
August, a.d. 14 of the Common Era, the fifteenth 
year of Tiberias may be taken to point to a.d. 29. 
In that year, continues St. Luke, "the word of Cod 
came unto John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilder- 
ness." A period somewhat later, by a few months at 
least, must be ascribed to our Lord's own baptism and 
the commencement of His ministry. At that time, 
says St. Luke, "Jesus Himself began to be about 
thirty years of age." So it stands in our Authorized 
Version, but, perhaps, more accurately, as follows, in 
the note to Tischendorfs edition : " And Jesus Himself, 
when He began, was about thirty years of age." Now, 
then, taking His Nativity, for the reasons already 
given, not later than the year 5 before the Common 

* " Ant. Jud.," lib. xviii. c. 1. We give the words from Whiston's 
version. 

I 



114 THE CHBONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

Era, it would follow that at the commencement of His 
ministry he must have been, not as St. Luke states, 
"about thirty" — dxrei Irdv rpiaKovra — but at least 
thirty-four or thirty-five years of age. 

These difficulties — and above all those connected 
with the " taxing " of Quirinus — have exercised in no 
small degree the ingenuity of commentators. Most 
various have been their expedients. Some have 
declared the whole parenthesis about Quirinus to be 
an early gloss and interpolation of the text. , Others, 
observing that Sentius Saturninus had been Governor 
of Syria some time before the death of Herod, desired, 
although with no authority from manuscripts, to sub- 
stitute his name for that of Cyrenius in St. Luke. 
This, it appears, no less an authority than Tertullian 
was willing to do.* Other changes in the text were 
proposed by others. Some, without tampering with 
the words, attempted to construe 7rpu)rr] in the sense 
of irpoTspa; the meaning of St. Luke being, as they 
alleged, to explain that the census which caused the 
journey to Bethlehem differed from and was earlier 
than the census of Quirinus. There seems, however, 
no adequate motive for such a reflection on the part of 
the Evangelist, and that construction would be, more- 
over, a force upon the Greek. 

Leaving the words as they stand, there has also 
been more recently an ingenious but fanciful theory. 
There was only one census, it is said, but that inter- 
rupted in its progress. As commanded by Augustus, 

* " Advers. Marcion.," lib. iv. c. 19. 



THE CPIKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 115 

and as commenced, we may suppose, in the year 5 
before Christ according to the Common Era, it may 
have proceeded g0 far that Joseph and Mary, and 
many more, went down to their own city to be taxed. 
But Augustus, in his indulgence, having perhaps 
relented, the new taxation may have been laid aside 
and not resumed till twelve years afterwards, when 
Judsea was reduced to a province and Quirinus sent 
out as governor. By this theory the first chrono- 
logical difficulty might perhaps be explained away ; 
but then this theory rests only on conjecture, with- 
out one shred of evidence or corroborative testimony. 

On the whole, then, this parenthesis of St. Luke 
about Cyrenius has remained obscure. Strauss, in his 
" Life of Jesus," points to it with exultation as to one 
of those points in which he desires to convict the 
Gospels of contradiction or inaccuracy. On the other 
side the ablest commentators have been- willing to 
allow that the passage is difficult, and has not yet 
received that full elucidation of which it would doubt- 
less admit. 

It is therefore with especial pleasure that we wel- 
come this publication of Dr. Zumpt. We gather from 
the dedication that the author was a favourite pupil 
of Dr. Twesten, the eminent Professor of Theology in 
the University of Berlin ; and we are informed that, as 
a classic scholar and exponent of Koman history, he 
enjoys a very high reputation in Germany. This 
gentleman has devoted a whole volume to the point at 
issue, and propounded a careful and consistent theory 
upon it. 



116 THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

That theory, indeed, is not altogether new. It was 
first propounded by Dr. Zumpt, in a Latin essay which 
appeared at Berlin in 1854 : " Comnaentatio de Syria 
Komanorum provincia ab Caesare Augusto ad T. Yes- 
pasianum." Since that time it has been most favour- 
ably noticed in this country. Mr. Lewin has adopted 
it in his able and comprehensive, though not always 
convincing, work on the New Testament Chronology 
which we have named second in the heading of this 
article.* Dr. Alford, Dean of Canterbury, whose un- 
timely death, even while these pages are passing 
through the press, we observe with deep concern, has 
on two occasions given to the theory of Dr. Zumpt the 
sanction of his high authority; first, in 1860, in the 
article "Cyrenius," which he contributed to Dr. Smith's 
" Dictionary of the Bible," and again, in 1863, in the 
corresponding passage of his own excellent Commen- 
tary on the Greek Testament. 

On neither occasion, however, has the dean gone 
into the case at all fully. "Zumpt," he says in his 
Commentary, " by arguments too long to be reproduced 
here, but very striking and satisfactory ." 

But this Latin dissertation of Dr. Zumpt — only 
known, as we imagine, to the highest class of Biblical 
scholars — has been recently succeeded by a book from 
the same hand in a living language. Here the theory 
in question is both more fully stated and more forcibly 
defended. As it stands before us in its full propor- 
tions, we cannot but acknowledge its force and power. 

* " Fasti Sacri," p. 132, ed. 1865. 



THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 117 

Proceeding, as it does, by the way, not of vague 
conjecture, but of sound historical deduction, it seems 
to us to explain the entire difficulty, and to establish 
the accuracy of the Gospel narrative on this point 
beyond the reach of future cavil. 

It is not, however, the date of the Nativity that is 
alone concerned. Dr. Zumpt, in this volume, points 
out that, on his first theory, combined with another 
which he urges, the exact date of the Passion also may 
be probably deduced. Under these circumstances, it 
has seemed to us that a fuller exposition of the case 
than has hitherto been afforded in this country might 
perhaps be welcome to many English readers. 

In this attempt we do not propose, however, to 
follow through every wandering the footsteps of Dr. 
Zumpt. So great — so very great — are his stores of 
learning and his powers of research, that they have 
sometimes led him into collateral narratives or illustra- 
tions not at all essential to 'his argument. We, neither 
possessing his vast erudition nor inclined to make so 
unmerciful a use of it, shall confine ourselves to the 
main proofs by which his positions are defended. We 
hope, therefore, while giving an account of his " dis- 
covery," as Dean Alford has justly termed it, to be 
able to present it to the public in a plainer and more 
popular form. 

At the very outset the word "first" (or Trpwrn) in 
the text is perhaps sufficient to afford a clue, or at 
least to suggest an inquiry. Might not Quirinus have 
held the office of Governor of Syria, not once only, but 
on two occasions — first, in the year 4 before the Chris- 



118 THE CHEONOLOGT OF THE GOSPELS. 

tian Era, when Judaea, after some previous preparations 
and announcements, was taxed according to the Jewish 
manner, each man repairing to his own city for that 
purpose ; and secondly, in the year 6 after the Chris- 
tian Era, when Judaea, reduced to a Koman province, 
was taxed according to the Eoman fashion, and when 
Quirinus was sent out for the second time to the same 
post ? Were such the case, the words of St. Luke, in 
strict grammatical construction, would mean only that 
the census preceding the birth of Christ was the first 
census taken under Quirinus, as distinguished from the 
second. 

Such, then, briefly stated, is the theory that Dr. 
Zumpt and Mr. Lewin desire to maintain. But was 
the fact really so ? Did indeed Quirinus fill his Syrian 
office at an earlier date ? Now, for the events of this 
epoch in the East we have, in general, two separate 
and trustworthy authorities, the one Eoman, and the 
other Jewish, Dion Cassius and Josephus. It so hap- 
pens, however, by a singular coincidence, that both of 
these fail us at this particular point, exactly for the 
same period of time. There is an interval in the 
history of Dion Cassius, arising from a break in the 
manuscript, from the year 6 before Christ till the year 
4 after, according to the. Common Era. Josephus 
relates very fully the reign of Herod the Great, and 
also the first events in the reign of his successor, but 
breaks off abruptly at the marriage of Archelaus to his 
brother's widow, and does not resume his narrative 
until the accusation brought against this prince in the 
tenth year of his reign, when he was summoned to 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 119 

Kome by Augustus, and deposed. For the fact, then, 
which we are seeking we have no direct historical 
testimony, either in proof or disproof. We can only 
proceed by historical inference, which, as all students 
of history know, is sometimes quite as convincing as 
the former. 

The Governor or " Legatus " of Syria was at this 
time one of the most important officers of the Roman 
empire — representing the person of the emperor, not 
merely in the province, but in any adjacent and de- 
pendent kingdom. To fill this post, a previous consul- 
ship was a necessary qualification ; and such, we may 
observe in passing, was possessed by Quirinus, even at 
the earlier period, since he had been consul in the year 
12 before Christ. 

We find that Caius Sentius Saturninus, a man also 
of consular rank, administered Syria from the year 9 
to the year 6 before Christ. In the latter year, he was 
succeeded by Publius Quinctilius Varus, another con- 
sularis, so well known subsequently from his terrible 
disaster in the German forests. Owing to the break in 
the established histories, as already explained, we lose 
sight of Varus in his Eastern course after the summer 
of the year 4. Our next direct evidence as to this 
succession of chiefs is derived from a coin which was 
struck at Antioch eight years later, that is, in the 
autumn of the year 4 after Christ, and which names 
Lucius Volusius Saturninus as the Eoman Governor of 
Syria. 

It does not seem probable that Varus continued in 
Syria much beyond the autumn of B.C. 4, when all trace 



120 THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

of him ceases. It was a maxim laid down under Au- 
gustus, for the better administration of the Koman 
empire, that no governor having command of an army 
in a province should, as far as was possible to apply 
one uniform rule, be left at his post for less than three 
years or for more than five ; * by the former limitation 
obtaining the benefit of some experience, and by the 
latter guarding against ambitious hopes and schemes 
of independent authority. In practice, however, it 
will be found from the instances adduced during this 
reign, that the period of three years was much more 
frequent than the term of five, although occasionally, 
and after an interval, the term of office was renewed. 
It is thought by Dr. Zumpt and Mr. Lewin that Varus 
was called away from Syria soon after the term when 
he is last named in connection with that province, and 
that he was immediately succeeded by Quirinus. 

We come now to the proofs. Quirinus survived till 
the year 21 of the Christian Era, and Tacitus, while 
recording his death, has rapidly sketched his career. 

" Quirinus," he says, " was born at Lanuviurn, a muni- 
cipal town ; and he was in no wise related to the ancient 
patrician family of the Sulpicii ; but, being a brave soldier, 
was for his vigorous military services rewarded with the 
consulship by the Divine Augustus ; and soon after with 
triumphal honours for having stormed the strongholds of 
the Homonadenses in Cilicia. Next, when Caius Caesar 
was sent to bear sway in Armenia, Quirinus was appointed 
his guardian, and at the same time paid court to Tiberius, 
then in exile at Khodes." f 

* Dion Cassius, lib. lii. c. 23. 

f " Nihil ad veterem et patriciam Sulpiciorum faniiliam Quirinus 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 121 

Tacitus goes on to state, in a passage which does not 
so immediately concern us, that Tiberius, on account 

of former friendship, pleaded warmly for the honour of 
a public funeral to Quirinus, which, the senate accord- 
ingly decreed as the emperor desired. To others, 
adds the historian, the memory of Quirinus was far 
from grateful, on account of the dangers to which, as 
elsewhere explained by Tacitus, his wife Lepida had 
through his means been exposed, and also on account 
of his own avaricious and overbearing old age. 

It is to be observed that Tacitus, in the passages 
which we have quoted, does not give, or profess to 
give, all the main incidents of this statesman's career. 
He says nothing, for example, of the government of 
Syria, which Quirinus held in the year 6 after Christ, 
or of the memorable census, as recorded by J osephus, 
which he then enforced on his province. It is very 
natural that the first government in the year I before 
Christ should, in express mention, be omitted also. 
But still the few facts which the Roman historian does 
allege are of the highest value for the question now 
before us. 

We have first to consider the Gains Caesar to whom 
Tacitus is here referring. This was the grandson and 
presumptive heir of Augustus. In the first year of the 
Christian Era he was despatched by the emperor to 
Syria, proceeding from thence to Armenia to wage war 

pertinuit. ortus apud municipiuia LarmviurQ. sed ixapiger militia et 
acribus rainistems consulatura sub Divo Augusts, raox espugnatis per 
Ciliciam Horaonadensiura castellis. insignia triurnphi adeptus. Aai . - 
que rector Caio C^esari Amieniara obtinenti, Tioeriurn quoque I:. 
agentern coluerat." (Tacit. '" Anna!./' lib. iii. c. 48*) 



122 THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

against the Parthians. To this young prince, then, as 
Tacitus tells us, Quirinus was appointed guide or 
guardian (rector). It appears, however, that for some 
reason not explained, Quirinus did not long hold that 
office. We find Suetonius name another man of con- 
sular rank, by name Marcus Lollius, as acting in the 
same capacity to Caius (comes et rector) as the war pro- 
ceeded.* It proved disastrous both to chief and adviser. 
Caius received a wound before the town of Artagera, of 
which he never recovered, and he expired in the year 
4 of our Era. Lollius was suspected of treacherous 
communication with the enemy, and died, it is said, of 
poison administered by his own hand. 

Lollius, as we learn from another historian, was 
succeeded by Censorinus,f — -Caius Marcius Censorinus, 
that is, who had also filled the consulship in former 
years. The question then arises, whom Augustus, on 
sending his grandson into Syria, was likely to select as 
his guide and guardian. Dr. Zumpt maintains that 
it must have been some man already conversant with 
Eastern affairs, and that in all probability it was the 
governor of this very province and the chief of the 
army stationed there. He holds, then, that Quirinus 
was at this time Governor of Syria, as were also, in 
succession to him, first Lollius and then Censorinus. 

Dr. Zumpt has certainly one strong instance to 
allege, so far as analogy can guide us. In the year 17 
after Christ, Tiberius, then emperor, sent on a mission 
to the East his adopted son Gerinanicus, who, as regards 

* Suetonius, " Tib.," c. 12. 

f Velleius Paterculus, lib. ii. c. 102. 



THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 123 

the heirship of the empire, stood in much the same 
relation to him as Caius Caesar had done to Augustus. 
There was this difference, however, that while Caius 
was young and untried, Germanicus had experience in 
war. He required, therefore, not a guardian (rector), 
but only a helper (adjutor). Tiberius, desiring to 
appoint as such a man on whom he could thoroughly 
rely, recalled Creticus Silanus from the government of 
Syria, and set in his place Cnseus Piso, who was 
directed at the same time to attend upon and assist 
the prince.* 

This argument does no more, we admit, than make 
the earlier government of Quirinus probable. But 
by another train of reasoning it becomes very nearly 
certain. Tacitus tells us that Quirinus obtained the 
emblems of a triumph from his expedition against the 
Homonaclenses in Cilicia. Some readers may feel sur- 
prise that we should here be eagerly discussing the 
affairs of an obscure tribe with an interminable name. 
Yet it is perhaps with this obscure tribe that lies the 
clue to the whole system of Gospel chronology. And 
first, When did this expedition occur ? It is placed by 
Tacitus after the consulship of Quirinus, and before 
his attendance on the grandson of Augustus. It must 
therefore have been some time previous to the year 1 
of the Christian Era. Next, In what capacity did 
Quirinus obtain his triumph ? It can only have been 
as governor of the province to which this savage tribe 
was considered to belong. In the system of the pro- 

* Tacit. " Annal .," lib. ii. c. 43. 



124 THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

vinces under the dominion of Eome, there was never 
any severance of civil government from military leader- 
ship. The same chief who conducted a war had at the 
same time the supreme administration of the province 
which was the scene, or had been the starting-point, of 
that war. It was not till the third century of our Era 
that a change was made in this respect. So fixed was 
this rule, says Dr. Zumpt, that not even one single 
exception can be found to it up to the period which he 
names. 

With this result to spur us, we may be willing, in 
company with Dr. Zumpt, to explore the scanty records 
of this robber tribe — for such the Homonadenses were. 
The sovereignty over them had been claimed by 
Amyntas, King of Galatia, who was slain by treachery 
in the year 25 before Christ, while attempting to sub- 
due them.* At his death, Galatia became a Eoman 
province, its first praetor being that same Marcus 
Lollius who subsequently became the comes et rector of 
Caius Caesar. The mountainous district of Cilicia — the 
rugged Cilicia, Cilicia Aspera, as the Komans termed 
it — had also formed part of the dominion of Amyntas, 
and it fell, at his decease, to Archelaus, King of 
Cappadocia. It is probable that the little robber-land 
shared at this time the fate of Eugged Cilicia, and was 
afterwards with it embodied in the empire. Certain it 
is that the predatory habits of this people roused at no 
distant date the resentment of Eome, and gave rise to 
the victorious expedition of Quirinus. 

* Strabo, " Geogr.," lib. xii. c. 6. 



THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 125 

We have further to observe of the Homonadenses 
that they dwelt so near the confines of Cilicia as some- 
times to be called its inhabitants, and sometimes only- 
its neighbours.* It is quite clear, however, from the 
express words of Tacitus, per Ciliciam, that, in the time 
the conquest of Quirinus was achieved, the Homona- 
denses were taken as within the Cilician borders. Per 
Ciliciam, we admit, is not exactly the same phrase as 
in Cilicia : it implies that these robber-fastnesses were 
scattered up and down the province, but it implies also 
as conclusively that they were not beyond or outside it. 
Now, as to Cilicia, there seems to be no doubt that all 
through that age, after it came under the dominion of 
the empire, it was held to be a portion or dependency 
of the Syrian province. Of this there are several proofs, 
which we may state as follows : — 

In the year 16 after Christ, Yonones, expelled from 
his kingdom of Parthia, sought refuge with Creticus 
Silanus, Prsefect or Governor of Syria. This governor 
confined him in Pompeiopolis, Cilicise maritime urbem, 
as in a city subject to his Syrian jurisdiction. 

In the year 19 after Christ, Cnseus Piso,f seeking 
to recover his province of Syria, sent to the petty chiefs 
(the reguli) of Cilicia, as though dependent on that 
province, to levy men for him.J 

The Clitae, as we learn from Tacitus, were among the 



* " Est contermina illi gens Homonadum quorum intus oppidum 
Homona." (Plin. " Hist. Nat.," lib. v. c. 23, not 94 as we find it in 
Zumpt.) On the other hand, an expression of Strabo indicates that 
he reckoned them as Cilicians. (" Geograph.," lib. xii. c. 6.) 

f Tacit. " Annal.," lib. ii. c. 4 and 58. 

\ Ibid., lib. ii. c. 78. 



126 THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

tribes of Cilicia.* We find that, in the year 36 after 
Christ, Yitellius, as Governor of Syria, sent his legate, 
with four thousand legionaries, to reduce that tribe. t 

Again, in the year 52 after Christ, we find another 
Prsefect of Syria, Curtius Severus, march with his 
cavalry against the ClitaB.J 

Thus also, in the year 72 after Christ, Antiochus, 
King of Commagene, being at Tarsus, a principal city 
of Cilicia, Csesennius Psetus, then Governor of Syria, 
despatched a centurion to that city to arrest him and 
send him in bonds to Koine, thus treating Tarsus as a 
part of his own territory. § 

It follows, then, that when Quirinus commenced 
his expedition against these mountaineers, he did not 
outstep the bounds of his appointed jurisdiction, and 
was dealing with a dependency of the Syrian province. 

The same conclusion as to his government at that 
time of this particular province is also arrived at by 
Dr. Zumpt through a different process — the process of 
exhaustion. He inquires what province, if not Syria, 
Quirinus could have held in this campaign. Bithynia, 
Galatia, and Pontus are eliminated by him, as not 
being consular provinces, or, in other words, not 
territories which had invariably for their governor 
some chief, as was Quirinus, of consular rank. There 
remain in the East only the province of Asia Proper 
and the province of Syria. But in Asia Proper, there 

* " Agrestium Cilicimn nationes quibus Clitarum cognomentum." 
(Tacit. " Annal.," lib xii. c. 55.) 

f Tacit. "Annal.," lib. vi. c. 41. X Ibid., lib. xii. c. 55. 

§ Josephus, " Bell. Jud.," lib. vii. c. 7. 



THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 127 

were no troops ; * while in Syria four legions were 
stationed. From the latter province alone could have 
proceeded such warfare as would entitle the successful 
chief to triumphal honours. 

It will be observed that these separate trains of 
argument all tend to one result. They render all but 
certain a former government of Quirinus in Syria — that 
government commencing probably in the latter months 
of the year 4 before Christ, and continuing till the year 
1 after Christ. Five years would then elapse before 
his re-appointment, and during these five years it might 
very well be that he held the other consular province 
in the East, the province of Asia Proper, as seems to 
be stated in the ancient inscription to which we shall 
presently refer. 

The list of the Governors of Syria at this period, 
with the dates at which they entered upon office, is 
accordingly established by Dr. Zumpt as follows : — 

C. Sen this Saturninus froin the year ... 9 before Christ. 
P. Quinctilius Varus 
P. Sulpicius Quirinus 

M.Lollius 

C. Marcius Censorinus 
L. Yolusius Saturninus 
P. Sulpicius Quirinus 
Q. Creticus Silanus 



4 „ 

1 after Christ. 

2 „ 
4 „ 
6 „ 

11 



It is true that this succession which Dr. Zumpt 
establishes does not at first sight solve the entire 
difficulty caused by the words of St. Luke. For, as 
we cannot place the Nativity of Christ later than the 

* Tacit. "Annal.," lib. iv. c. 5. 



128 THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

year 5 before the Common Era, so we can as little 
place the first governorship of Quirinus earlier than 
the year 4. But this remaining difficulty is apparent 
only. It is easy to conceive that a general census, 
more especially according to the Jewish method of 
division into tribes, must have taken a considerable 
time for its completion. It is easy to conceive how 
Joseph and Mary might go " to be taxed " at Bethle- 
hem in the year 5, under the government of Syria by 
Saturninus or Quinctilius Varus, and yet not be called 
upon to pay, nor find the taxing finally ordered, till 
two or three years later, under the government of Qui- 
rinus. In this manner all ground for cavil disappears. 
There might yet be another source of information 
on this subject. No scholar but is well aware of the 
great value for historical researches of the ancient 
inscriptions. Collected they were, in great part, even 
two centuries ago, but it is only of late years that they 
have been completed and classified and provided with 
classical notes by the skill of such men as Orelli. On 
this path, however, it behoves us to tread warily, for 
the ground is strewed with pitfalls. Forgeries, of 
modern date, though in Ciceronian Latin, are very 
frequent. Thus, many years since, we had occasion, 
in the pages of this Review, to show that the famous 
epitaph on Julia Alpinula, so much admired by Lord 
Byron, and so familiar to the readers of Childe Harold, 
is, in fact, the work of a modern hand.* It is strange 
how few scruples were felt, and how lightly such falsi- 

* "Childe Harold," canto iii., stanza 66. Quarterly Review, 
No. civ., June, 1846. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 129 

fications were regarded. Thus Mr. Surtees, of Mains- 
forth, the historian of Durham, a man of the highest 
character, and wholly incapable of falsehood or decep- 
tion on any other subject, sent to Sir Walter Scott a 
Northumbrian ballad which was, every line of it, his 
own handiwork, but which, as he alleged, was taken 
down from the recitation of a woman, eighty years of 
age, mother of one of the miners in Alston Moor. 
" She had not," she said, " heard it for many years ; 
but when she was a girl, it used to be sung at merry- 
making till the roof rung again." No wonder that 
a tale so circumstantial was implicitly believed. Sir 
Walter received the gift with pleasure, and inserted it 
without suspicion in his " Border Minstrelsy " as an 
authentic record of the olden time.* 

It so happened that, long before any idea was 
raised of an earlier term of office for Quirinus, some 
surprise was expressed that, considering the import- 
ance of his government of Syria in the year 6 after 
Christ, when Judaea was first reduced to a Koman 
province, no record of him should remain on any 
known inscription. As though to meet this want, it 
was ere long announced that a monument in his com- 
memoration had been discovered in the Venetian 
territory. This was first published at Padua in 1719. 
It refers to the proceedings of Quirinus, intending by 
that reference the year 6 of our Era, and it goes on to 
state that one of his lieutenants, ^Emilius Secundus 
by name, had by his orders taken the census at 

* Note 12 to first canto of " Marmion ; " and " Life of Kobert 
Surtees," published by the Surtees Society. 

K 



130 THE CHEONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

Apamea, where he found 117,000 citizens. Since this 
inscription deals only with the government of the 
year 6, it would be, even though of unquestionable 
authenticity, wholly immaterial to our present object. 
But it is in truth a mere modern forgery. First, as in 
the case of Julia Alpinula, the original stone could 
never be produced. Next, there are some slips in the 
lapidary Latin. " I hold it to be fictitious," says the 
sagacious Orelli.* "Only those," says Dr. Zumpt, 
"who are not conversant with such inscriptions could 
give any credit to this." 

There is, however, another inscription which is 
thought to refer to . Quirinus, and of which the au- 
thenticity has never been disputed. It is on a sepul- 
chral tablet discovered near Tivoli. Several copies, 
the first in 1765, have been with more or less cor- 
rectness taken from it ; but, unhappily, the first part 
has altogether perished, while the second is much 
mutilated. We will give it as it stands in the last 
and most authentic copy, as taken by Mommsen and 
inserted by Orelli f : — 



. . . EGEM QUA KEDACTA IN POT 
AUGUSTI POPULIQUE EOMANI SENATU 
SUPPLICATIONES BINAS OB EES PKOSP 
IPSI OENAMENTA TKIUMPH . . 
PEO CONSUL ASIAM PEOVINCIAM OP . 
DIVI AUGUSTI . . TEEUM SYEIAM ET PH 



* " Inscriptionum Latinarum Collectio." No. 623, ed. Turici, 1828. 

f No. 5366 in the third and supplemental volume, published 1856. 
The stone itself is now in horreis Vaticanis. Litterse magnse, sunt et 
pulchrm. 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 131 

Mr. Lewin, who has taken great pains and shown 
great sagacity in discussing this inscription, has no 
doubt of its application to Quirinus. He observes that 
the two lines previous to the first that now remain 
might perhaps be restored as follows : — 

CIVITATEM SUBEGIT HOMONADENSIUM QUI 
INTERFECERANT AMYNTAM RE — 

And he gives as an alternative of the second line — 

ADFLIXERANT LATROCINIIS ARCHELAUM RE— 

Of these two alternatives we must say that we 
greatly prefer the latter. The slaughter of King 
Amyntas could not be stated as the motive for the 
expedition of Quirinus, since an interval of some five 
and twenty years elapsed between these events. 

On the first line of all, did it still remain, we might 
expect to find the name and titles of Quirinus ; and 
the following would be the most probable restoration 
of the rest : — 

******** 
[CIVITATEM SUBEGIT HOMONADENSIUM QUI 
ADFLIXERANT LATROCINIIS ARCHELAUM RE] 
GEM QUA REDACT! IN POT[ESTATEM DIVl] 
AUGUSTI POPULIQUE ROMANI SENATU[s] 
SUPPLICATIONES BINAS OB RES PROSP[ERE GESTAS ET] 
IPSI ORNAMENT A TRIUMPH[ALIA DECREVIT] 
PROCONSUL ASIAM PROVINCIAM OP[TINUIT LEGATUS] 
DIVI AUGUSTI ITERUM SYRIAM ET [PHOENICIAM]. 

Our readers will observe how exactly the Orna- 
menta triumphalia of this inscription tally with the 
insignia triumphi of Tacitus, as distinguished from an 



132 THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

actual triumph. Nor will they fail to observe the 
iterum Syrium stating distinctly that twofold term of 
government which our argument has been striving to 
establish. 

But Dr. Zumpt demurs. Writing, as is his wont, 
with perfect fairness, he does not adopt any argument 
merely because it points to his own conclusion. In 
this case he has a strong doubt whether, in fact, this 
inscription refers to Quirinus ; and he thinks that 
Sentius Saturninus is more probably the person im- 
plied. His main reason is founded on a passage in 
the "Epitome of Koman History" by Julius Floras. 
Thence, as he thinks, we may deduce that Quirinus, 
in the period between his two governments of Syria, 
had subdued certain African tribes, the Marmaridse 
and the Garamantes, which, if he did at all, he could 
have done only as Proconsul of Africa or Gyrene. 
During that period, therefore, he could not have been 
proconsul also of Asia, as the inscription declares. 
Mr. Lewin argues on the contrary side, but appears to 
overlook the strongest of all the pleas that can be 
urged against this text of Floras, namely, the un- 
certainty of the right reading. It is well known to 
students of Eoman history that the copies of Floras 
differ much from one another. Professor William 
Eamsay says of it : " As might be expected in a work 
which was extensively employed in the Middle Ages 
as a school-book, the text is found in most manuscripts 
under a very corrupt form." * In the particular 

* Article "Florus" in Dr. Smith's " Dictionary of Greek and 
Koman Biography." 



THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 133 

passage which we are now discussing, several manu- 
scripts give the name, not of Quirinus, but of Furnius. 
So it is, for instance, in the edition which is now before 
us, printed by Hall at Oxford in 1650, and enriched by 
the commentary of Stadius, Professor of History at 
Louvain.* The Furnius here referred to was, like 
Quirinus, of consular rank, having been consul in the 
year 17 before Christ. He is commemorated in a 
passage of Seneca for a graceful saying of his to 
Augustus, when he obtained his father's pardon in the 
Civil Wars.f 

If, then, we are willing — as we may, on adequate 
authority — to read Furnius in this passage of the 
" Epitome," we shall have no further difficulty with 
the tablet from Tivoli. We may, then, be fully 
justified if we ascribe it to Quirinus, and please our- 
selves with the iterum Syriam — a phrase, indeed, 
which on any other supposition remains wholly un- 
explained. Should there be, however, any doubts 
remaining, we would by no means allege this inscrip- 
tion or lay any stress upon its terms, conceiving as 
we do that the argument of Dr. Zumpt is thoroughly 
convincing without it. 

We must observe, however, that, as regards the 



* This edition gives the passage as follows : — [Augustus] " Mar- 
maridas atque Garasnantas Furnio subigendos dedit. Potuit et ille 
redire Marmaricus sed modestior in sestimanda victoria, fuit " (Florus, 
lib. iv. p. 133). 

f " Nullo magis Csesarem Augustum demeruit et ad alia impetranda 
facilem sibi reddidit Furnius quam quod, cum patri Antonianas partes 
secuto veniam impetrasset, dixit ; Hanc unam Csesar Jiabeo injuriam 
tuam ; effecisti ut viverem et morerer ingratus." (Seneca, " De Benef,," 
lib. ii. c. 25.) 



134 THE CHRONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

exact year of the Nativity, we are not altogether in 
accord with Dr. Zumpt. fie is not quite satisfied with 
fixing it at the year 5 before the Common Era, and 
would rather choose the year 7. His principal motive 
is, that in the last-named year there was a thrice- 
repeated conjunction of the planets Jupiter and Saturn 
in the sign of the Fish, corresponding, as he thinks, 
to the "star in the east" which is recorded by St. 
Matthew, and which led the " wise men " from their 
country to Bethlehem. This is a suggestion which, 
under various forms and dates, has been not unfre- 
quently debated of late years. Bat, as is well observed 
by the present Archbishop of York, " the words of St. 
Matthew are extremely hard to reconcile with a con- 
junction of planets." At all events, this is a wholly 
different order of ideas, into which we decline on this 
occasion to follow Dr. Zumpt. We take him for our 
guide only so far as he treads on historical ground. 

Adhering, then, to that ground, we continue to 
maintain that the first difficulty which we have stated 
as arising from the text of St. Luke — his mention, 
namely, of the census of Quirinus — is most fully cleared 
up. There remains the second difficulty, from the 
age of about thirty years ascribed to our Lord at the 
commencement of His ministry. Let it be observed 
that this difficulty will still exist, whatever view we 
may take of Quirinus. For in any case, knowing as 
we do the exact date of Herod's death, we cannot 
place Christ's birth at an earlier date than 5 before 
the Common Era. Assuming, then, the 15th year of 
Tiberius to be equivalent with 29 after Christ, there 



THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 135 

would still remain at the latter period an age of at 
least thirty-four years. 

With this difficulty, also, Dr. Zumpt proceeds to 
deal in the second portion of his book. He shows, 
with a vast extent of erudition and alleging many 
cases of analogy, that St. Luke appears to have 
computed his 15th year of Tiberius not from the year 
14, when Augustus died, but from the year 11, when 
Augustus, by formal decree, associated Tiberius with 
himself as co-regent of the provinces and joint 
imperator of the troops. On this basis, the commence- 
ment of Christ's ministry would fall in the year 26, 
Christ being then between thirty and thirty-one years 
of age. His Passion would ensue in the year 29, under 
the consulship of the two Gemini, the very date 
assigned to it by the constant and uniform tradition 
of the early Church. 

This explanation, which Dr. Zumpt has so ably 
vindicated, was, as he informs us, first propounded 
by an Englishman almost a century and a half ago, — 
Nicholas Mann, whose Latin Essay bears date 1743.* 
In our own time it has been countenanced by the 
high authority of the present Archbishop of York. 
" The rule of Tiberius," he says, " may be calculated 
either from the beginning of his sole reign, after the 
death of Augustus, in the year of Eome 767, or from 



* We learn, however, from that excellent and most useful book, 
Allibone's " Dictionary of English Literature," that this Latin Essay- 
was only a translation of the author's earlier work in English, pub- 
lished 1733. Mann was master of the Charterhouse. Both his 
treatises— the Latin and the English — are in the library of the 
British Museum. 



L°)6 THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 

his joint government with Augustus, that is, from the 
beginning of the year 765. In the latter case, the 
15th year would correspond with the year of Rome 
779, which goes to confirm the rest of the calculations 
relied on in this article." * 

We do not, however, propose to follow Dr. Zumpt 
into this, the second part, of his book. It is wholly 
distinct from the former in its line of argument, and 
might form the subject of a separate essay. We 
desire only, in adverting once again to Dr. Zumpt's 
complete success (for so we deem it) in the first part 
of his researches, to point out how encouraging is the 
example it affords. Here is a difficulty which but 
some thirty years ago Dr. Strauss was gloating over 
and declaring to be entirely insoluble — and now we 
behold it solved. Here we have another proof that 
Biblical studies are not, as they were once regarded, 
a stationary science, but, like all other sciences, admit 
of progression and increase. 

It was certainly too often the custom of English 
divines, during the whole of the last century, and 
during also a part of the present, to put all thorny 
questions as much out of sight as possible, or, if com- 
pelled to deal with them, to be content with what 
the Germans call Gerede — an array of high-flown words 
that convey no definite meaning. It was not felt how 
much more danger there is to faith in leaving every 
student to discover these difficulties for himself, with- 



* Smith's " Dictionary of the Bible," article " Jesus Christ." The 
archbishop was then, as Dr. Thomson, Provost of Queen's College, 
Oxford. 



THE CHKONOLOGY OF THE GOSPELS. 137 

out any clue to guide him through them. It was 
not felt how far more earnest and high-minded would 
be the system that has now succeeded — frankly to 
admit the lack of clearness whenever the explanation 
is imperfect : not as owning the objection to be valid, 
but only as inviting further thought and inquiry to 
resolve it. Did we desire to show an instance of the 
practical result of either system, we might select, on 
the one side, the annotated edition of the English 
Bible compiled by Bishop Mant and Dr. Doyly, and, 
on the other part, the recent Commentary on the 
Greek Testament by Dean Alford. Without intending 
any disrespect to the first two theologians, we must 
say that a student who refers to them in any perplexity 
will derive from them very little satisfaction. He will 
never find the depth to be fathomed, but only the 
surface smoothed over. In Dean Alford's book, on 
tne contrary, the tone is manly and outspoken ; the 
object is not to bind up the eyes of the inquirer, but 
rather to direct and invigorate his sight. It is only, 
we are convinced, in the latter spirit that the Church 
of England can continue to prevail in the coming con- 
tests. Thus, and thus alone, as we conceive, in the 
anxious time that is now before us, can the Christian 
cause be worthily professed and efficiently defended. 



IV. 

THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 



THE YEAR OF THE PASSION.* 



IN a former number of this Keview we dwelt upon 
the chronological difficulties that attend the 
Gospel narrative of our Lord's Nativity; and we 
explained the ingenious discovery of Dr. Zumpt, by 
which, as we think, these difficulties are most success- 
fully surmounted. We also on that occasion, though 
only in one or two sentences, touched upon the separate 
train of argument by which, as it seemed to us, the year 
of the Passion also might be with great probability 
established. It is our present purpose to resume the 
latter subject and to treat it in detail, taking for our 
text a recent publication of Canon Norris. This is but 
a brief compendium, yet it shows the candour as well 
as the ability and learning of the author, stating its 
points in the clearest manner, and exciting its readers 
to a more minute investigation than its own limits 
would allow. We are of course the better pleased with 

* A Key to the Narrative of the Four Gospels. By John Pilkington 
Norris, M.A., Canon of Bristol, and formerly one of her Majesty's 
Inspectors of Schools. London, 1870. 



142 THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 

it, since we find it come to the same conclusion as we 
had formed. 

To those who would explore the chronology of the 
Gospels, the true sheet-anchor is the date of King 
Herod's death. With so renowned a tyrant this has 
not been hard to trace. We do not indeed derive any 
light from the statement of Josephus, that he was in 
his seventieth year when he expired, since we are 
nowhere told the time when he was born. But 
Josephus goes on to say that he reigned thirty-four 
years since he caused Antigonus to be slain, and 
thirty-seven since he was declared king by the 
Romans. Now, the decree of the senate, which 
named Herod king of the Jews, was passed in the 
second consulship of Domitius Calvinus, that is, in 
the year 40 before Christ, according to the Common 
Era. And the taking of Jerusalem by Sosius, and the 
slaughter of Antigonus, the last king of the Asmonean 
line, took place during the consulships of Marcus 
Agrippa and Canidius Gallus, that is, in the year 37. 
Both these indications, therefore, combine in fixing 
for the death of Herod the year 4 before the common 
but faulty Christian Era. 

It is possible, however, to be still more precise. 
Josephus commemorates an eclipse of the moon as 
having occurred during Herod's final illness ; and the 
calculation of modern astronomers has assigned this 
eclipse to the 13th of March in that year. But, as 
another passage of the Jewish chronicler informs us, 
Herod had died before the Passover which ensued. A 
controversy has indeed arisen whether that Passover 



THE YEAK OF THE PASSION. 143 

took place in regular course at the full moon of the 
first Nisan, which would make it the 12th of April, or 
whether there might not be in that year the intercala- 
tion of a second Msan month, by which the Passover 
would be delayed until the 10th of May. But in 
either case it is clear that the date of Herod's death is 
confined to narrow bounds.* 

The inference is equally plain. Accepting as we do 
in its full extent the narrative in St. Matthew's Gospel 
of the visit of the Magi, the flight into Egypt, and the 
Massacre of the Innocents, it follows that the date 
of Herod's death must govern the date of Christ's 
Nativity. Under these circumstances it seems that 
we can scarcely fix the period of the Nativity later 
than the closing months of the year 5 before the 
Common Era — before the date, that is, which in the 
Middle Ages was assigned to it. This error in the old 
computation has been long since a well-known and 
admitted fact, and we only advert to it here as giving 
more completion and clearness to our subsequent case. 

The next note of time which we obtain is derived 
from the Gospel of St. Luke. He relates to us how 
John commenced his preaching in the wilderness, and 
how shortly afterwards Christ Himself was baptised. 
These events he fixes " in the fifteenth year of the reign 
of Tiberius Caesar ; " and he adds, according to the im- 
proved translation which we find in Tischendorf's New 

* The passages of Josephus here referred to are to be found in the 
" Jewish Antiquities," lib. xvii. chaps. 6, 8, and 9. So far back as 
1748 these were ably drawn out and discussed by M. Freret, whose 
essay may still be consulted with advantage : " Memories de l'Academie 
des Inscriptions," vol. xxi. p. 278. 



144 THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 

Testament, " And Jesus Himself, when He began, was 
about thirty years of age." To this important text we 
shall presently return. 

As regards the third great event in the Gospel 
history — namely, the Passion — the Gospels give us no 
chronological clue. It is natural, however, to suppose 
that the date of year would be preserved by tradition 
in the early Church. Here was a public and judicial 
act, witnessed by thousands of spectators, and in record- 
ing the year of which there could be no chance of 
error. Here was an event that formed the very key- 
stone of the newly founded faith. Can it then be 
doubted that the first Christians, even though unversed 
in literature, would consider its date as a matter of 
deep interest, and carefully hand it down among 
themselves ? 

This reasonable presumption is fully borne out by 
the actual fact. So early as we can trace the Christian 
records on this point, we find them state, without a 
shade of hesitation, that Jesus suffered under the con- 
sulship of the two Gemini. This was in the year 782 
from the foundation of Eome, and corresponds to the 
year 29 of the Common Era as fixed five centuries 
later. Tacitus, at the commencement of his fifth book 
of Annals, speaks of it as follows : — " Kubellius and 
Fufius were then consuls, each of whom bore the sur- 
name of Geminus." Brotier adds, in a note, " There is 
a common agreement among ancient writers (consentit 
antiquitas) that the Passion of Christ took place when 
the Gemini were consuls ; " and in his supplement to 
the lost books he places that event accordingly. 



THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 145 

It may further be said, as we think, that the 
occurrence — so rare in the consular annals — of both 
the magistrates bearing the same surname must have 
greatly tended to distinguish that year from others 
and impress it on the popular mind. 

Looking, then, to some of the main authorities for 
early Christian history, we find them all concur in the 
date of year. It is mentioned as a certain fact by Ter- 
tullian. Lactantius records it in two separate passages. 
Augustine, in his great work, " De Civitate Dei," bears 
witness to the same fact ; * and though Augustine lived 
so many years later, great weight is certainly due to 
his deliberate testimony, not only from the penetrating 
genius which he brought to the study of the Scriptures, 
but as showing that the early tradition was still ac- 
cepted and alive. 

It seems, indeed, scarcely too much to say that if 
the uniform tradition of the Church is to be set aside 
in a case like this, we do not see how it can be sus- 
tained in any other. There are, nevertheless, two 
difficulties in the way. First, the writers we have 
named, and some others also, undertake to give not 
only the date of the year but also the date of the day, 
and in this last they do not quite agree. Tertullian, 
after telling us that the Passion took place in the con- 
sulship of the two Gemini, goes on to say that it was 
mense Martio, temporibus Paschee, die VIII. Calendarum 
Aprilium. Lactantius, in the former of his two pas- 



* Tertullian, " Advers. Judseos," c. 8. Lactantius, " Instit. Div.," 
lib. v. c. 10. " DeMort. Persec," c. 2. Augustin. " De Civit, Dei." 
lib. xviii. c. 54. 

L 



146 THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 

sages, fixes it ante diem decimum Kalendarum Aprilium ; 
while in the latter he says, post diem decimum Kal. 
Aprilis. The question is further perplexed by modern 
astronomers, who seek to give us year by year the 
exact days of the Paschal full moon, but who are not 
entitled to speak with any confidence on this point 
from the irregularity of the Jews at that time in their 
mode of reckoning and their occasional intercalation of 
an entire month in their year. So acute a critic as 
Wieseler, after all his laborious researches, is obliged 
at last to own that at the period of our Lord it is almost 
impossible to show what exact day in the Julian 
Calendar corresponds with a day in the Jewish.* 

This irregularity in the old Jewish Calendar will 
go far to explain the difference of opinion in the eccle- 
siastical writers as to the precise day of the Passion. 
Moreover, it should be borne in mind — as indeed we 
may still observe — how very varying from year to 
year are the days of the Easter celebration. It would 
be far from easy, before the time of almanacs, to recol- 
lect precisely which had been the date only a few 
years before ; nor would any importance be ascribed to 
such exactness, as compared at least with the import- 
ance of being accurate as to the year of that great 
event. Under these circumstances, we can well 
understand how, within certain small limits, some 
uncertainty, some contradiction, might arise as to the 
day ; and we cannot admit that such doubts afford 



* " Chronologische Synopse," ed. 1843. See especially p. 439. 
" According to Ideler the calendar of feasts now in use among the 
Jews was not established till the fourth century of our Era." 



THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 147 

any valid argument to discredit the strong testimonies 
as to the year. 

But there is yet another difficulty, although at 
the outset not so regarded. During the second and 
third centuries of our Era the Christian writers, while 
accepting the tradition of the two Gemini as the 
date of Christ's Passion, were no less bound by the 
words of St. Luke, which fix the fifteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberius as the date of His baptism. Now, 
since Augustus died in the month of August of the 
year 14 of the Common Era, these words would seem 
to point to the same year 29. Pressed in this manner 
between the tradition and the text, some of these 
writers concluded that the ministry of Christ on earth 
had endured only for one twelvemonth, or less : and 
this they called 6 Ivlovtoq tov Kvplov, " the year of the 
Lord." 

Such an idea, however, could not stand the test 
of any critical examination. Those who have been 
accustomed to weigh the facts of history will certainly 
agree that such manifold acts and teachings as are 
recorded of Christ could not be compressed within 
so narrow bounds. Still more important is it to 
observe that, since the Gospel of St. John enumerates 
or implies three Passovers as occurring during the 
term of our Lord's ministry, it follows that, according 
to St. John, His ministry must have continued for at 
least two years and some months ; and such may be 
taken as at present the common and received opinion. 
This conclusion, as derived from the fourth Gospel, 
was well known to some at least of the ancient Fathers. 



148 THE YEAK OF THE PASSION. 

It is given by Jerome in nearly the same words as 
we have used.* With such a conclusion, derived from 
such authority, the idea of a single " year of the 
Lord " could strike no lasting root. Yet still the 
perplexity as to the dates remained. Still was it 
desired to combine, if possible, the tradition and the 
text. Sometimes the tradition was sacrificed; some- 
times the text was explained away ; but much more 
frequently, perhaps, the two statements were left 
without elucidation, though standing as it were side 
by side. 

It was an English divine who first proposed what 
we take to be the true solution. Nicholas Mann, 
Master of the Charterhouse, published in 1733 a 
treatise " Of the true years of the Birth and Death of 
Christ." The name of the author does not stand upon 
the title-page, but it appears as signature of the 
dedication to the Bishop of Chichester ; and there 
followed in 1743, for the benefit of foreign scholars, 
a Latin version of the work. 

The object of Mann is to show that we should 
compute the fifteenth year of Tiberius in the passage 
of St. Luke not from the year 14 of the Common 
Era, when Augustus died, but from the formal decree 
issued three years before, which named Tiberius co- 
regent of the provinces, and joint commander of the 
armies. In this well-devised explanation Mann is, 
no doubt, entitled to the honour of priority. But in 



* " Scriptum est in Evangelic* secundum Joannem per tria Pascha 
Dominum venisse in Jerusalem, quse duos annos efficiunt." — Hieron. 
" Comm. in Isaiam," chap. xxix. ver. 1, Op. vol. iii. p. 245, ed. 1704. 



THE YEAE OF THE PASSION. 149 

all other respects — in argument, in learning, in powers 
of illustration — his treatise is far inferior to that of 
Dr. Zumpt, which appeared in 1869, and which, in 
connection with another subject, was discussed last 
year in the pages of this Keview. It is mainly, there- 
fore, by the aid of the latter work that we shall now 
proceed to state the case. 

It appears, then, that Augustus, finding the in- 
firmities of age advance upon him, and having already 
adopted Tiberius as his heir, resolved to associate that 
young chief, without any restriction, in the govern- 
ment of the empire. For this purpose, as Velleius 
Paterculus tells us, he obtained a decree giving to 
Tiberius co-equal powers with himself over all the 
provinces and armies. This decree, it should be noted, 
was passed in most solemn form, not by the senate 
only, but in the name of the senate and the people.* 
Its exact date is not recorded, but it is placed by 
Velleius just before the return of Tiberius from his 
German expedition, and his triumph over the hostile 
tribes. Now, this triumph was celebrated January 16, 
a.d. 12, and we may therefore fix the date of the 
decree towards the close of the preceding year. 
Beckoning the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius 
from that period, we shall come to the last weeks of 
A.D. 26. 

It should be observed that in this passage of 
St. Luke the word " reign," as our Authorized Version 
gives it, rather exceeds the meaning of riyejULovla in 

* Velleius Paterculus, "Hist.," lib. ii. c. 121. 



150 THE YEAE OF THE PASSION. 

the Greek original. The word « reign," it is obvious, 
can be used only of a sovereign, and in general a 
sovereign ruling singly, while the Greek term may 
serve for any case of high authority. In this very 
text the Evangelist does not merely apply it to 
Tiberius, but gives the same epithet (as riysjuiovevwv) 
to Pontius Pilate, and this, in an earlier passage, he 
does likewise to Publius Quirinus, as Governor of 
Syria. The exact meaning of St. Luke might be 
rather thus expressed : " in the fifteenth year since 
Tiberius first bore sway." 

The joint rule of Augustus and Tiberius is attested 
by two ancient inscriptions, both of which Orelli has 
inserted.* The first was found in Dalmatia. It is of 
P. Cornelius Dolabella, who held an office at this 
period. The words referring to this are as follows : — 

"PRO. PR. DIVI AVGUSTI ET TI. CAESARIS AUGUSTI." 

As its date, Orelli gives in his note 10 a.d., — at least a 
twelvemonth too soon. 

The second of these inscriptions is, or was, at the 
monastery of Monte Cassino. It commemorates one 
Caius Ummidius, who under Claudius became Governor 
of Illyria, and under Nero Governor of Lusitania, but 
who under the joint emperors held the office of 
Quaestor in Cyprus. Here are the words upon the 
last-named post: — 

" PROVINC. CYPRI Q. DIVI AVG. ET TI. CAESARIS AVG." 
Considering the high title here ascribed to the 

* " Inscript. Latin. Collectio," ed. Orelli, Nos. 2365 et 3128. 



THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 151 

young emperor, and the co-equal obedience implied 
on the part of the officers of state, it seems difficult 
to doubt that, if the writers of these inscriptions had 
been asked at a later period to name the first year of 
the reign of Tiberius, they would have named the year 
11 a.d., rather than the year 14 a.d. 

It is certainly true that not only Tacitus and 
Suetonius, but Josephus also, date the reign of Tiberius 
from the death of Augustus. Such, it appears, was the 
practice of historians who wrote for the great world 
at Rome. But the case might be far otherwise with 
local and provincial writers, who looked to the realities 
of power rather than to its due transmission and 
descent. They could distinguish between the radiance 
of the rising and the dimness of the setting sun ;• they 
saw from whom the orders came, and to whom the 
petitions were addressed; and where they saw the 
authority wielded they would deem the reign to have 
commenced. 

There is a striking analogy to this case in the 
one that immediately precedes it — the sole sway of 
Augustus. However historians and annalists at Rome 
might concur as to the date of his sovereignty, there 
was no such agreement elsewhere. From the coins or 
the inscriptions engraved in various cities, we find that 
no less than eight different dates were assigned as the 
commencement of his reign.* Thus in the East, some 
reckoned it from the battle of Actium, others from the 

* Marquardt-Becker, "Handbuch der Eomischen Alterthiimer," 
vol. ii. 3, 229, as cited by Dr. Znmpt. Clinton, in his " Fasti Hellenici " 
(vol. iii. p. 276, ed. 1834), enumerates only five of these dates. 



152 THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 

taking of Alexandria. In other provinces, further 
removed from such local impressions, some computed 
from the time when the title of Augustus, and some 
from the time when the office of Imperator, was be- 
stowed. Since, then, we have to admit eight such 
dates as current for the commencement of the reign 
of Augustus, it does not seem unreasonable to infer 
that two might be in vogue for the commencement 
of the reign of Tiberius,- — the one reckoned from his 
joint authority, the second from his undivided sway. 

It seems natural, however, to inquire whether any 
light can be brought to bear upon this controversy 
from the other notes of time in St'. Luke. Let us, 
in the first place, transcribe the two verses in 
question : — 

"Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius 
Caesar, Pontius Pilate being governor of Judaea, and 
Herod being tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip 
tetrarch of Ituraea and of the region of Trachonitis, and 
Lysanias the tetrarch of Abilene, 

" Annas and Caiaphas being the high priests, the word 
of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilder- 
ness." 

There is no chronological point to be established 
from the mention of Annas and Caiaphas as the high 
priests; nor does Lysanias of Abilene yield us any 
further information. The name was borne, it would 
seem, in succession by two chiefs at least of that 
little state. Of Herod's two sons, as we learn from 
Josephus, Philip died a.d. 34, after ruling thirty- 
seven years; and Antipas was deposed and banished 



THE YEAK OF THE PASSION. 153 

by Caligula a.d. 37, after ruling thirty-five.* It is plain 
that these dates apply equally well to either theory, 
whether we fix the Tiberius era at a.d. 11 or a.d. 14. 

There remains, then, the case of Pontius Pilate ; 
and here again we have Josephus for a guide. We 
learn from him that, near the close of Tiberius's reign, 
Pilate was accused of grievous cruelty to the people 
of Samaria, and was sent home by Yitellius, then 
Governor of Syria, to answer for his conduct. On 
arriving at Kome, however, he found that the emperor 
had already expired.! Now, the death of Tiberius 
took place on the 16th of March, a.d. 37, and we may 
fix the recall of Pilate in the month of January pre- 
ceding. Josephus says that he had been ten years 
in Judsea. But here, as elsewhere, the Jewish his- 
torian speaks only in round numbers as to years, and 
takes no account as to months ; and we have strong 
grounds to conclude that several months must, in this 
case, be added. For the predecessor of Pilate in office 
— namely, Valerius Gratus — had been recalled at the 
close of the year a.d. 25, and it seems in the highest 
degree improbable that for the space of an entire 
twelvemonth the Komans would have left so turbulent 
a province without a chief.f If, then, we take the 
government of Pilate as commencing in mid-summer, 
A.D. 26, and ending in mid-winter, a.d. 36, we shall 
find that it consists as well with the theory of Mann 
as with that more commonly received. 



* " Ant. Jud.," lib. xviii. c. 4 and 7. t Ibid. c. 5. 

X See this conclusion more fully established by Dr. Zumpt, " Des 
Geburtsjahr Christi," p. 297, ed 1869. 



154 THE YEAE OF THE PASSION. 

But there is another passage in the Gospels which 
is, as we think, entirely and without any doubt decisive 
in favour of Mann's theory. We would refer to the 
second chapter of St. John, where it is related how, 
shortly after the first miracle of Jesus in Cana of Gali- 
lee, and how being then at Jerusalem for the approach- 
ing feast of Passover, He was engaged in controversy 
with certain of the Jews : — 

" Then answered the Jews and said unto Him, What 
sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these 
things ? 

" Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this 
temple, and in three days I will raise it up. 

"Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this 
temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three 
days?" 

Here the first question that arises is, whether at 
this time the building of the temple was completed. 
If it were, it might have been so for some time pre- 
vious ; and the Jews might still, very fairly for their 
argument, allege the number of years that its building- 
had required. But if it were not completed then, the 
Jews could speak only of its progress up to the time 
at which they spoke ; and in that case, by determining 
the date when the construction of the temple was 
commenced, we could also determine the date of the 
discussion which the Evangelist records. 

Now, in both these cases our information is precise 
and clear. The main body of the temple was closed in 
and in use for the Jewish services for a long time before 
the ministry of Jesus, but the edifice was not brought 



THE YEAR OF THE PASSION. 155 

to a completion until a long time afterwards. It was 
not finished till the year a.d. 63, in the reign of the 
Emperor Nero. On the other hand, we learn that 
Herod began the construction of the temple in the 
eighteenth year of his reign. Both these facts, with 
their dates, stand on the high authority of Josephus.* 

But when did Herod's reign begin? We have 
already had occasion to show that, as in the case of 
Tiberius, there were two different computations for it ; 
the one reckoning from the decree of the Boman senate, 
which named him king ; and the other from his actual 
acquisition of the kingdom by the taking of Jerusalem 
and the death of the last Asmonean prince. The first 
of these events was in the year B.C. 40, the second in 
37. However, we are left in no doubt as to which date 
Josephus here designed. For after telling us that 
the building of the temple was commenced in the 
eighteenth year of the king's reign, he goes on to say 
that it was " after the acts already mentioned " (tiera 
rag TrpoEiprj/uiivag irpa^uo). Now, the acts just before 
related by Josephus were the visit of Augustus in the 
spring to Syria, and his return in the autumn to Samos; 
and this visit, as we learn from other sources, took 
place in the year B.C. 20. We may therefore fix the 
foundation of this, the third temple of Jerusalem, 
towards the close of B.C. 20 or the beginning of 19. If 
the Jews, as appears to have been their common prac- 
tice with days, reckoned the broken year at the com- 
mencement as entire, the forty-six years stated from 

* "Ant. Jud.," lib. xx. c. 9, and lib. xv. c. 11. 



156 THE YEAE OF THE PASSION. 

the first building would bring us to the early months 
of a.d. 27, and this is the more probable time. If, how- 
ever, the broken year be not so included, we come then 
to the early months of a.d. 28 ; but by no possibility 
can this computation allow a later date. Those, there- 
fore, who place the first appearance of our Lord in the 
year 29, do so in the very teeth of the deductions 
which the statement of the Jews in the fourth Gospel 
enables us to make. 

There is another argument which we have reserved 
to the last, and which, as we hope, will have much 
weight with a large majority of our readers. It is only 
by the theory of Mann and Zumpt that we can fully 
vindicate the accuracy of St. Luke. If in our Biblical 
chronology we desire to postpone the first public ap- 
pearance of Jesus till the year a.d. 29, and if we bear 
in mind that it is incumbent upon us to place His 
Nativity some months before the death of Herod, we 
must admit that He was thirty-four or thirty-five years 
of age at the commencement of His ministry. Now, 
St. Luke has told us that He was then " about thirty ;" 
and this, were it really brought home to him, would in 
an Evangelist be a considerable error — above all, in 
one who speaks of himself as " having had perfect 
understanding of all things from the very first." 

We have now brought to a close our argument on 
the year of the Passion, which we have endeavoured to 
state as briefly as clearness would allow. But, before 
we conclude, we desire to express the wish and hope 
which we have formed that some scholar worthy of the 
task — Dean Stanley, perhaps, or Mr. Grove — might 



THE YEAK OF THE PASSION. 157 

consent to -undertake a local history of Jerusalem, 
similar to those which we already possess of Borne. 
From the excavations and researches that are even 
now in progress, he might compare to great advantage 
the descriptions in the Old Testament with the traces 
of foundation that still remain. The essay of 3WL Jacob 
Bemays, as published at Berlin in 1861, has with sin- 
gular ingenuity brought to bear some facts, hitherto 
unnoticed, on the memorable siege of Titus — facts that 
any future writer would certainly not neglect. The 
Arabic manuscripts might — more doubtfully — afford 
him some new details as to the edifices in the Moslem 
period, and above all. as to the mosque of Omar. From 
that era of servitude the spirit of the annalist would 
kindle, and his materials, far from failing, would 
gather in masses round him, as he came to the days of 
the great deliverance — when, after contests fierce and 
dire, the Holy City was regained by Christian arms 
under auspices that even Gibbon can scarcely record 
without a thrill of enthusiasm — when in his own words, 
— u on a Friday, at three in the afternoon, the day and 
hour of the Passion, Godfrey of Bouillon stood victo- 
rious on the walls of Jerusalem." * 

* ■ Decline and Fall," yoL ttL g __" L<:. Smith's edition. 



V. 

HAEOLD OF NORWAY. 



HAROLD OF NORWAY.' 



K. DASENT' S book, which we have named first on 
JUL our title-page, seems to us to have considerable 
merit. We can laugh with his " Jest," and learn a 
great deal from his "Earnest." As to the first we 
must, however, except from our commendation two 
political squibs of great personal acerbity and very 
questionable taste, which we tbi.uk Mr. Dasent would 
have done well in not producing. We can with far 
more pleasure join him in his lightsome trips to the 
Faroe Islands and the Wildbad waters. As regards 
his " Earnest," all persons, we think, must admit that 
he employs to great advantage the large stock of 
ancient Scandinavian lore, of which, in several former 
publications, he has shown himself most fully pos- 
sessed. We have found him all through that rugged 
region an able and sure-footed guide. 

* 1. Jest and Earnest, a Collection of Essays and Reviews. By 
George Webbe Dasent, Esq., D.C.L. 2 vols. London, 1873. 

2. Inscription Runique du Piree, par C. C. Eafn a Copenhague, 
1856. 

3. Historia Haraldi Severi, ex vetere Sermone Latine reddita, opera 
et studio Sveiiibjomis Egilsonii in Islandid. (In the sixth volume of 
the " Scripta Historica Islandorum," Hafnise, 1835.) 

M 



162 HAKOLD OF NORWAY. 

Of the several grim trans-Baltic heroes with whom 
Mr. Dasent makes us better acquainted, there is cer- 
tainly none so striking — more especially remembering 
his close connection with our own history — as the 
Harold of Norway, whom his contemporaries surnamed 
Hafl, that is "the Tall;" but whom his chroniclers 
call Hardrada — or, as the English historians have 
made it, Harfager, that is " the Severe." We design 
with our author's aid to offer to our readers a sketch of 
his remarkable career. But here at the outset we have 
a fault to find with Mr. Dasent, not indeed for what 
he tells, but for what he has left untold. To our mind 
there is no point in Harold's life so curious as his un- 
expected connection with one of the monuments of 
ancient Greece; and yet this story is dismissed by 
Mr. Dasent in only half a sentence. We, on the 
contrary, shall endeavour to detail it at full length, 
deriving our information from other sources, and, 
above all, from the learned and excellent work which 
we have named as second at the head of the present 
article. 

When literature and learning first revived among 
the Western nations of Europe, little or nothing was 
known of the actual state of Athens. It was not till 
the year 1573 that Martin Kraus or Crusius, a pro- 
fessor at Tubingen, showed some curiosity on the 
subject. He contrived to open a communication with 
two Greeks residing at Constantinople, and believed 
to be men of learning. In his own letters he says 
that Athens had been described to him as totally 



HAROLD OF NORWAY. 163 

destroyed, and occupied only by a few fishermen's 
huts ; and he desires to learn whether such was the 
real fact. He had little cause to congratulate himself 
on the answers he received. One of his correspondents, 
Zygomalas by name, told him that being a native 
of Nauplia he had often visited Athens, and admired 
an edifice on the Acropolis, which surpassed all other 
edifices, and this edifice, he said, was the Pantheon ! 
His second instructor, Simeon Kavasila, referred in 
like manner to the Parthenon ; but called it the 
Temple of the Unknown God which St. Paul had 
mentioned ! * If such were the learned men of Greece 
at this period, we confess that we should have liked to 
see a sample of the ignorant. 

In the next century this ignorance as to the ruins 
of Athens was in part dispelled by some visitors from 
Western Europe, though few and far between. Chief 
among them were the fellow-travellers Spon and 
Wheler, the one a physician from Lyons, the other 
an English gentlemen. They not only speak of the 
Parthenon under its right name, and with its historical 
antecedents, but have given us a good description of 
it as it was in 1675 — a description the more valuable 
since, in little more than ten years from that time, 
the glorious building was shattered and in part 
subverted by the explosion of a bomb in the Venetian 
siege. 

But it was not merely the Parthenon that Spon 
and Wheler describe. Their published travels notice 

* Mart. Crusius, " Turco-Gnecise," lib. vii. ep. 10 et 18, ed. 1854. 



1G4 HAROLD OF NORWAY. 

many other objects of antiquity ; among others two 
colossal lions of Pentelic marble. Better judges have 
since pronounced these statues admirable works, in the 
highest style of Attic art. The one, in a sitting 
posture and ten feet in height, stood on the inner 
shore of the Piraeus harbour, which it seemed to guard. 
From that statue the harbour itself derived the name 
of Porto Leone, which it bore among the Franks all 
through the Middle Ages and down to our own times. 
As such it is mentioned by Lord Byron' in " The 
Giaour." The Greek fisherman, he says — 

" Though worn and weary with his toil 
And cumber'd with his scaly spoil, 
Slowly yet strongly plies the oar 
Till Port Leone's safer shore 
Eeceives him by the lovely light 
That best becomes an Eastern night." 

The second statue, also of Pentelic marble, was 
nearly equal to the first in point of art, but far less 
good in point of preservation. The travellers of 1675 
saw it on its original base, a little outside the city, 
near the ancient " Sacred Way." The animal is 
represented as couching and at rest; and Spon says 
that he felt inclined to address it in the following 
words: "Sleep on, Lion of Athens, since the Lion of 
the Harbour watches for thee." * 

Twelve years later, after the successful but destruc- 
tive siege, it came to pass that Morosini at the head 
of the Venetians found it requisite to retire from the 



Y 



oyages de Spon et Wheler," vol. ii. pp. 145 et 177, ed. 1679. 



HAKOLD OF NOEWAY. 165 

city. Before lie went, however, he resolved that he 
would bear away with him some memorial of his con- 
quest. First he turned his thoughts to a magnificent 
piece of sculpture on the western pediment of the 
Parthenon, representing the car of Victory with horses 
of the natural size, and this he gave orders to remove. 
But so careless or so clumsy were his workmen, that 
the whole group was thrown down in the act of 
lowering it, and shivered almost into dust. Si ruppero 
non solo, ma si difecero in polvere, writes a Venetian 
captain, who was present* 

Foiled in his first object, this worthy precursor of 
Lord Elgin — 

" Cold as the crags upon his native coast 
His mind as barren and his heart as hard," 

— next betook himself to the separate statues of lions, 
in and about the city. Of these he carried off three 
to adorn the Arsenal at Venice, and from the spoils 
of Corinth a fourth was subsequently added.t That 
and one of the others also are of lesser size and inferior 
merit, and need not be further mentioned. But the 
remaining two — the lion sejant from the Piraeus, and 
the lion couchant from the Sacred Way — as placed 
before the gate of the Arsenal, command to this day 
the admiration of all lovers or connoisseurs of art. 

If it were not for the three centuries that separate 
the life of Dante from the removal of these monu- 
ments to Venice, we should certainly have assumed 

* Leake's " Topography of Athens," vol. ii. p. 87. 
f Ibid. vol. i. p. 371. 



166 HAEOLD OF NOB WAY. 

that the great Italian poet had in his mind the Lion 
of the Piraeus, when he describes in lofty strains the 
majestic repose of the Mantuan Sordello : — 

" aniina Lorabarda, 
Come ti stavi altera e disdegnosa ; 
E nel muover degli occhi onesta e tarda ! 

Ella non ci diceva alcuna cosa, 
Ma lasciavane gir, solo guardando 
A guisa di leon quando si posa." * 

Close observers at Venice must, however, from the 
first have noticed with great surprise that the statue 
of the sitting lion bore around each of its shoulders, 
and in serpentine folds, the remains of barbaric in- 
scriptions. These strange characters were after a time 
recognized as Norwegian Runes. Still, with every 
effort they could not be deciphered. They had been 
much defaced, and flattened at the edges, in great part 
it would seem by the effect of musket balls, the in- 
scriptions having probably been used as marks in firing 
by some of the soldiery in Greece. Many wild con- 
jectures were put forth during tens of years to explain 
how the Runes of Norway could have come to the 
Piraeus or appear on monuments of Hellenic art. It 
was not till our own day, however, that the mystery 
was solved. 

The merit of this remarkable discovery belongs 
wholly to the late M. Rafn, an antiquary of Copen- 
hagen, distinguished by profound learning and many 
ingenious researches. When at Venice he tried in 
vain, like all his predecessors, to decipher the battered 

# " Purgatorio," canto vi. verse 61. 



HAKOLD OF NOKWAY. 167 

Runes. He could, indeed, make out separate letters 
here and there, but not a connected word, or still less 
a connected sentence. He had given up the attempt 
in despair and had returned to his native country, 
when as it chanced a large stone was laid bare at the 
village of Harrenstrup, in the Isle of Zealand, which 
had on its surface some ancient sculpture, or rather 
scratches, representing ships. M. Rafn went forth 
with several friends to view these rude engravings, 
but found them so nearly effaced that no drawings 
of them could be made. The visitors after some hours 
of noonday examination relinquished the object. Still, 
however, they lingered near the spot till sunset, when, 
previous to departure, one of the party walked back to 
take a last look at the stone. How great was his 
surprise to find that the lengthening shadows had 
brought into relief the slight irregularities left upon 
the surface by the effaced designs, and enabled their 
outline to be correctly traced. 

This experience was not lost on M. Rafn. It 
occurred to him that the like method, if applied to 
the Runes from the Piraeus, might be attended with 
the like success. In the first place, however, he ob- 
tained a cast in plaster from the original marble, as 
also copies of the best designs that had been taken. 
These he kept by him for the purpose of comparison 
with the shadows to be observed both at sunrise and 
sunset upon the statue. This was in December, 185U 
M. de Bertouch, a Danish gentleman, was at that time 
residing at Venice. He undertook to observe and note 
the shadows, not only at various hours of the day, but 



168 HAKOLD OF NOKWAY. 

also at several seasons of the year. Selecting the most 
favourable of these views, M. cle Bertouch despatched 
to Copenhagen two large photographs of the double 
inscription, in which, to the great delight of M. Kafn, 
many of the vanished letters, and some quite clearly, 
reappeared. Thus did M. Kafn find himself enabled 
to decipher nearly all the words, and it was with 
especial pleasure that he remarked among them the 
name of a chief so renowned in Northern story as was 
Harold the Tall. 

To complete or to correct the observations of his 
friend, and the ideas upon the subject which he had 
already formed, M. Rafn once more repaired to Venice. 
"At last," he says, "I have attained my object, and 
can offer to the public an almost certain interpretation 
of the Runes, — a result which at the outset I was far 
from expecting." Both the inscriptions are in serpen- 
tine folds, as is common with the ancient Runes, but 
if reduced to straight lines, that on the lion's left 
shoulder is as follows. We transcribe it from M. Rafn's 
book, with this explanation, that where there are but 
faint traces of a letter he has printed it in small 
capitals, while on the other hand he uses common type 
in the few places where he had nothing beyond con- 
jecture to guide him. 

: H AKUN : VAN : ^Ir : ULFR : aUK : ASMuDr : aUK 
AuRN : HAFN : ^ESA : f>IR : MeN : Lag^U : A 
Uk : HARADr : HAfI : UF IABUTA : UPRAiStar 
Vegna : GRIkIAI^IS : VARl> : DALKr . NaU^uGR 
I : FiarI : LAl>UM : EGIL : VAR : I : FARU : mil) 
RAGNARi : til : RUmanlU .... auk : aRMENIU 



HAROLD OF NORWAY. 169 

Wo will now present to onr readers this inscription 
literally rendered, observing only that in our English 
version, as in M. Kafn's French, the names are given in 
accordance with the common spelling, — 

" Hakon, combined with Ulf, with Asmund, and with 
Orn, conquered this port [the Piraeus]. These men and 
Harold the Tall imposed [on the inhabitants] large fines, 
on account of the revolt of the Greek people. Dalk has 
been detained in distant lands. Egil was waging war, 
together with Eagnar, in Eoumania and Armenia." 

We may notice that these chiefs in the Varangian 
Guard (as we shall presently show them to be) who 
possessed themselves of the Piraeus were desirous to 
explain in this inscription the absence of their com- 
rades. The one was detained, perhaps as a prisoner, in 
a foreign country ; the two others were in active service 
on the frontiers of the empire. 

We will now give the inscription from the right 
shoulder of the lion, — 

: ASMUDR : HJU : runAR : f>ISAR : I>AIR 
ISKir : auk : puRLXFR : EURElR : AUK : IV Ar 
at : BON : HaRADS : hAFa : I>UAT : GRIKiAR 

uf : hUGSA^u : auk : bAnaf>u : 

Or, in English, — 

" Asmund engraved these Runes in combination with 
Asgeir, Thorleif, Thord, and Ivar, by desire of Harold the 
Tall, although the Greeks on reflection opposed it." 

It is worthy of note in this last paragraph how the 
people of Athens, fallen as they were from their high 
estate, still, where they could, resented the defacing of 



170 HAKOLD OF NOKWAY. 

their ancient monuments. The same feeling may be 
traced more than seven centuries later, during Lord 
Elgin's depredations. Thus wrote Dr. Clarke to Lord 
Byron in a note subsequently published : — 

"When the last of the Metopes was taken from the 
Parthenon, and in moving of it great part of the super- 
structure, with one of the triglyphs, was thrown down by 
the workmen whom Lord Elgin employed, the Disdar, who 
beheld the injury done to the building, took his pipe from 
his mouth, dropped a tear, and in a supplicating tone of 
voice said to Lusieri, tJX,o? ! I was present." 

Having thus interpreted the Eunes from the Pirseus, 
we will proceed to sketch the career of Harold and 
explain his connection with the revolt of the Athenians. 
Our chief materials are derived from those Sagas of 
Iceland which, in their Latin version, we have named 
as third on our title-page. 

Harold, the son of Sigurd, was born in the year 
1015 ; half-brother of Olaf the Saint, King of Norway. 
Even in his boyhood his heroic spirit is extolled by the 
Iceland Saga. He was but fifteen years of age when 
King Olaf was about to engage in the decisive battle 
of Stiklastad. " Let my brother keep aloof," said Olaf, 
" he is but a child." Not such was the choice of the 
young prince himself. " I will not keep aloof," he 
cried ; " if I am thought too weak as yet and unable to 
wield a sword, I know the remedy ; let my hand be 
tied fast to the hilt, and I shall be found amongst the 
foremost ! " In the battle which ensued he showed all 
the valour he had promised ; but the result was most 
disastrous : King Olaf was defeated and slain. 



HAEOLD OF NOKWAY. 171 

Young Harold, grievously wounded, was borne from 
the field by some trusty followers, and kept concealed 
in a cottage until his strength returned. Next spring 
he sought refuge in Gardarika, as Russia was at that 
time called by the Norwegians. He was kindly re- 
ceived by the Grand Duke Jaroslav ; and in due time 
became enamoured of Elizabeth, daughter of his host. 
But when he pressed his suit Jaroslav proved as flinty- 
hearted as any father in a modern novel. " Not yet," 
he said ; " you must first do some high deeds in warfare, 
and lay the foundations both of wealth and fame." 

The path of fortune in that age was clear and open 
to any aspiring youth of Northern race. It was to 
seek service at Constantinople in the emperor's body- 
guard — the far-famed Varangians. Of these Varan- 
gians but a very brief account is to be found in Gibbon. 
Of their name, which perplexed the early critics, Mr. 
Dasent says : "Var, Anglo-Saxon, woer, from which the 
word arose, had nothing to do with war. It meant 
oath, or a promise sanctioned by an oath, and from this 
point of view might be considered only as a translation 
of the Latin Sacr amentum — the oath taken to their 
colours by the Roman soldiers." 

The Varangians of the emperors at Constantinople 
might be compared on some points with the Swiss 
Guard of the Popes at Rome. They were exclusively 
Northern, recruited by Norwegians, Danes, and English, 
and their numbers are computed by Mr. Dasent as 
varying from 1000 to 2400 men. The south-western 
wing of the palace was reserved for their head-quarters, 
and bore the Latin title of Excubitum. Whenever the 



172 HAROLD OF NORWAY. 

emperor went forth, on any occasion of business or 
state, it was their special duty to attend him, armed 
with their two-edged Norwegian battle-axes. To them 
also was assigned the important post in that land of 
domestic conspiracies, to keep watch at the door of the 
emperor's bedchamber. 

But it was not only with the emperor that their 
sphere of duty lay ; a band of them was frequently 
despatched to the armies on the frontier, even in the 
emperors absence, there to act as a Corps (TElite, and 
set an example to the degenerate Greeks engaged in 
the same service. The best proof perhaps of their 
prowess lies in the present extension of their name. 
Thus writes Mr. Mounsey, a recent traveller in Persia, 
and the author of a very pleasant book thereon.* The 
scene is at Tabreez : — 

" Eiding through the bazaar on the morning after my 
arrival, ever and anon as I passed along, I heard amongst 
the Babel of sounds and street-cries the words ' Feringhee, 
Feringhee ; ' and as the term seemed connected with my 
person, and was the only one which, in my ignorance of 
the language of the country, had the definite form of a 
word to my ear, I naturally asked my companion, the 
consul, what it meant. ' Stranger,' was the reply. ' All 
Europeans are included in the term.' As I afterwards 
found, this is the case all over Persia. The educated man 
has, indeed, some vague ideas that there are other coun- 
tries and nations in the world besides his beloved and 
glorious Iran ; he knows something of Turkey, of India, 
and Arabia, and if his studies have been deep, even of 

* " A Journey through the Caucasus and the Interior of Persia." 
By Augustus H. Mounsey, F.R.G.S., Second Consul to H.B.M. 
Embassy at Vienna. London, 1872. 



HAKOLD OF NORWAY. 173 

Yengidunya — ' the young world ' — America ; but for the 
masses there is in Europe, or rather westwards of Con- 
stantinople, but one land — ' Feringkistan,' and one race, 
that of the ' Feringhee.' The Yarangians came from that 
land, and their prowess or notoriety was so great that in 
this ultra-conservative of countries all foreigners are still 
designated by a corruption of their name." 

Harold, who had set out from Bussia, and whom we 
have left too long on his way, reached Constantinople 
in 1033, being then eighteen years of age. He had 
shot up to a giant's — or at least a hero's — size, seven 
feet in height at the very lowest computation. After 
some brief interval, he and his attendants enrolled 
themselves in the Yarangian Guard. For some reason, 
not quite clear, but probably to conceal his connection 
with Jaroslav, he suppressed his real name, and, as the 
Saga tells us, took that of " Nordbrikt," which he con- 
tinued to bear through the whole of his Eastern career. 
No wonder if an appellation so dissonant* to Southern 
ears should not be commemorated by the Byzantine 
writers, who, indeed — and we suppose for the same 
reason — scarcely ever mention a Yarangian by name. 
The Yarangians, on their part, made strange havoc 
with the Southern appellations. Thus, the great 
church of St. Sophia, the "Hagia Sophia" of the 
Greeks, became with them " Aegisif," and the Hippo- 
drome " Padrein." Their own quarter, the Excubitum, 
or, as the common people at Constantinople called it, 
" Skuviton," was in their mouths contracted to " Skift." 

The stalwart form of Harold, his undaunted 
courage, and perhaps also some knowledge or sus- 



174 HAROLD OF NORWAY. 

picion of his princely rank, gained hirn almost from 
the first a lead among his comrades in arms. He 
appeared to no less advantage in the games of football 
and wrestling, the favourite pastimes of the North, 
which the Varangians were wont to practise after their 
musters and reviews ; and on one of these occasions 
he attracted in an especial manner the notice of the 
Empress Zoe. We will leave the story to Mr. Dasent 
to tell in part, and in part only. 

" Then when the games w r ere at their height, and 
some played, while others sat round in a triple ring, and 
amongst them Harold ' Nordbrikt,' it happened that the 
empress and her ladies came that way, and stopped to 
gaze on their manly forms. After admiring for a while 
their strength and skill, the empress cast her eyes on 
Harold, and going straight up to him said, 'Listen, 
Northman ! give me a lock of thy hair.' Harold's answer 
it is impossible to give . . . but the reply, though coarse 
and rude, was witty and quick, and all laughed that 
heard it, though they wondered at the boldness of the 
youth who thus dared to turn the tables on the empress, 
and did not spare her with his biting words. Zoe herself, 
whose taste could not have been over-nice, seems to have 
been little shocked, and went on her way, smiling at 
Harold's w^ords." 

It may well be supposed that this tale is not 
recorded by the Byzantine historian of the period, 
the courtly Cedrenus; but the Northern Saga states 
it in all its native rudeness. 

But it was not at Constantinople that Harold was 
commonly found. We read of him as leading forth 
bands of the brave Varangians, sometimes to quell 



HAKOLD OF NOKWAY. 175 

the revolt of an inland province, and sometimes to 
combat an enemy upon the frontier. Several of his 
campaigns and sieges against the Saracens in Sicily 
are related in the Saga, but with too manifest an 
admixture of legend and of fable. In other years, we 
find him warring with the wild tribes in Syria or 
Armenia. By the spoils which he won, and the 
contributions which he exacted, he soon amassed con- 
siderable treasure, and this from time to time he 
transmitted for safe custody to his Kussian friends, 
who hoarded it faithfully for him. 

As the constant companion and the chief lieutenant 
of Harold in his various campaigns, the Saga com- 
memorates Ulf — a word equivalent to Wolf — the same 
whose name appears on the Runes of the Pireeus. 
Harold had also with him — perhaps even in the East, 
but more probably after his return to Norway — one 
of the Northern Skalds, Thiodolf by name, who sings 
his praises in the barbaric spirit of that age. Here is 
one of his strains : — 

" Let all men know that Harold 
Was engaged in eighteen fierce fights 
* # * * # 

Great King ! thou hast stained with gore 
The hungry beak of the eagle, 
And the wolf that followed in thy track 
Has ever been gorged with prey." 

The year 1040, as M. Rafn thinks, may be fixed as 
the time when Harold and his followers overcame the 
Athenian insurgents, and caused the Eunes of the 
Piraeus to be engraved. 



176 HAEOLD OF NOEWAY. 

Harold was at Constantinople in the spring of 
1042, when there occurred one of those revolutions 
of the palace, so frequent in the Byzantine story. The 
Emperor Michael, consort of Zoe, had died three 
months before, and Zoe, in compliance with his last 
request, had raised to the purple his nephew, another 
Michael. The new sovereign showed his gratitude by 
an early plot against his benefactress. In the night 
of the 19th of April he caused Zoe to be seized, shaved 
her head, and shut her up in a convent. But next 
day, the multitude being apprised of the event, rose 
in arms, shouting aloud for " Zoe ! our mother, Zoe ! " 
Harold and his Varangians also took her side. A 
desperate struggle ensued, in which three thousand 
people are said to have fallen. Their cause, however, 
at last prevailed. The Varangians broke into the 
palace to search for the emperor, and plundered all 
the treasure they could find. Michael himself fled 
to a monastery, and disguised himself in a monk's 
cowl ; while Zoe and her sister Theodora were pro- 
claimed joint empresses. A sentence was passed that 
the fallen emperor should be deprived of sight; 
accordingly he was torn from his hiding-place, and 
dragged to the place called Sigma, where his eyes 
were at once plucked out. 

The Skalds, or Court poets of Harold, and of course 
his constant panegyrists, could sing in after years how 
" the mighty leader tore away both the emperor's eyes," 
or, in another place, how "the prince (Harold) won 
yet more gold, but the King of the Greeks went stone 
blind from his sore wounds." It seems from sucn ex- 



HAROLD OF NORWAY. 177 

pressions — this is Mr. Dasent's just remark — as if the 
bloody deed had been done with Harold's own hand. 

Other things are related by the Saga of Harold at 
Constantinople. We have that inevitable scene in 
all the High North legends of an encounter with a 
gigantic snake or dragon in a cave. We have some 
love passages of Harold with a certain Maria, called 
the niece of the Empress Zoe, though that descent 
ill accords with the Byzantine pedigrees. All these 
tales are so largely intermingled with fable, that 
the slight foundation of fact, if any, can scarcely be 
discerned. 

In 1041 Harold, having completed eleven years of 
service in the East, obtained his discharge and went 
back to Russia with a band of faithful followers. 
Embarking at Constantinople, they steered up the 
Black Sea, and thence up the Sea of Azof and the 
Don. As they sailed along Harold was moodily 
brooding over the reception that might await him 
at the Court of Jaroslav — how, in all probability, the 
young princess had forgotten and would reject him. 
Eull of these thoughts he composed a poem, in sixteen 
stanzas, some of which are still preserved. They are 
all on the same model, and all in eight lines, the first 
six recounting his exploits and accomplishments, and 
the last two as a refrain anticipating the failure of his 
love. Here is one as a sample : — 

" There are eight things that I know : 
I can write a poem ; 
I have experience in riding ; 
I have often practised to swim ; 

N 



178 HAROLD OF NORWAY. 

I know how to wield the long pole ; 
Not unskilled to throw the spear, or to row : 
Yet the Maid who dwells in Gardarika, 
Adorned with golden rings, disdains me." 

Why, when Harold began by boasting of his eight 
accomplishments, he should, in fact, enumerate no 
more than six, we cannot undertake to explain. We 
can only suppose it to arise from the cruel necessities 
of the metre, which limited his enumeration to six 
lines. 

Here is another stanza of much greater interest, 
since it seems to bear upon the question that we just 
now discussed. These lines we derive from the later 
and most careful translation of M. Kafn : — 

" Neither the Maid nor the Matron 
Can deny that we have been 
One morn at the burgh in the south, 
Then how we brandished the steel ! 
By our swords we laid open a track ; 
A memorial is there to record it ; 
Yet the Maid who dwells in Gardarika, 
Adorned with golden rings, disdains me." 

This phrase "burgh, or borg, in the south," is 
explained by M. Kafn as denoting Athens, which the 
Norwegian writers call " Athenuborg," M. Kafn ad- 
duces some other passages to show that even in the 
dark ages they regarded Athens with respect, and 
declared it the first of all Grecian towns. In like 
manner M. Kafn contends that the word merki, which 
we have translated " memorial," and which we take to 
be closely allied to the German merhmal, refers, in all 



HAEOLD OF NORWAY. 179 

. probability, to the Runes engraved upon the sides of 
the lion. 

To the same effect as Harold's stanza, is one by 
his Court poet, the constant extoller of his exploits, 
Thiodolf:— 

" The greed of the wolves was appeased 
By the valiant Chief of the hosts, 
At the time when the lances were brandished 
And the vanquished sued for peace. 
Oft has he gathered great spoil 
From the south of the sea by his sword, 
While faint-hearted men kept aloof: 
A memorial of this still remains." 

Here the Norwegian word is not merhi, but minni, 
which, however, is said to bear exactly the same mean- 
ing. It may be applied not only to monuments, strictly 
so called, but to any form of record, whether fixed or 
movable. Thus in the Saga the word is used of a 
great bell which Harold, when reigning in Norway, 
presented, in memory of St. Olaf, to the church at 
Thingvall. 

We may add that if Harold and his comrades de- 
signed on taking the Piraeus to leave behind them some 
permanent memorial of their conquest, there was scarce 
any other course open to them than the engraving of 
Eunes. Sculpture was out of the question in an age 
when the art had not merely declined, but had, it may 
be said, expired. 

On reaching Kieff, where the Russian sovereign 
then held Court, Harold found that his apprehensions 
had been vain. He was warmly welcomed by Jaroslav, 



180 HAROLD OF NORWAY. 

and perhaps more warmly still by his first love, the 
Princess Elizabeth, whom he now espoused. With all 
his exploits he was still but twenty-nine years of age. 
Henceforth his thoughts reverted to his paternal realm 
of Norway, where was peaceably reigning his nephew 
Magnus, the son of St. Olaf, and himself surnamed the 
Good. 

But Magnus the Good was no match for Harold the 
Dauntless. The latter landed in Sweden, gathered 
around him a band of followers, and presented so 
formidable an appearance that the pacific Mngnus 
quickly came to terms. An equal partition was agreed 
upon. The two young princes were to be joint kings 
of Norway, and Magnus was to receive one-half of 
Harold's treasures. It seems doubtful whether in any 
case that compact could have long endured. But an 
accident brought it to a speedy close. King Magnus, 
while riding at full speed, was thrown from his horse, 
and in falling struck his head against the root of a 
tree, and from the wounds which he then received he 
died. 

By the decease of Magnus Harold became sole 
sovereign of Norway, and reigned as such for twenty 
years. The harshness of his rule may be sufficiently 
inferred from the surname that he gained of " Hardrada," 
the Severe. He was still upon the throne when there 
came the year 1066, so memorable in the annals of 
England. The Crown being grasped by Harold the 
Saxon at the death of Edward the Confessor, a con- 
federacy gathered against the new king. His own 
brother, Tosti, fled to Flanders and implored the 



HAROLD OF NORWAY. 181 

alliance of Norway, while William of Normandy was 
preparing his forces on the coasts of France.* 

Harold Hardrada, ever warlike and ambitious, 
eagerly closed with the overtures of Tosti. The two 
chiefs made common cause. Early in September 
Harold appeared at the mouth of the Tyne with a 
formidable armament of three hundred ships of war. 
He was joined by some sixty sail from Flanders, under 
the command of Tosti, who thereupon did homage to 
Harold as to his liege lord. Ascending the Humber 
with their fleets combined, they landed their troops 
with little or no resistance, and in a battle which 
ensued utterly routed the two great earls, Edwin 
and Mercer, the brothers-in-law of King Harold the 
Saxon. 

But scarcely was this victory achieved than the 
tidings came that King Harold the Saxon, at the head 
of considerable forces, was marching from the south 
against them. Tosti, as arrayed in arms against his 
brother, felt by this time some scruple of conscience, or 
more probably perhaps some mistrust of success. He 
sent a message to King Harold inquiring what might 
be the conditions of a peace. The result has been told 
by Sir Walter Scott in a passage of " Ivanhoe " as 
follows. It is condensed from the ancient chronicles 
with admirable grace and spirit : — 

* It is beside the purpose of the present sketch of Harold's career 
to narrate at length his invasion of England, or to enter into a critical 
examination of the commonly received story. We must refer our 
readers, for these points, to Mr. Freeman's exhaustive account in his 
41 History of the Norman Conquest " (vol. iii. pp. 327, foil.) — a work of 
which we hope to give, at some future time, the detailed notice which 
its importance deserves. 



182 HAKOLD OF NOKWAY. 

" ' Yes,' said Cedric, ' it was in this very hall that my 
father feasted with Torquil Wolfganger when he enter- 
tained the valiant and unfortunate Harold. It was in this 
hall that Harold returned the magnanimous answer to the. 
ambassador of his rebel brother. Oft have I heard my 
father kindle as he told the tale. The envoy of Tosti was 
admitted when this ample room could scarce contain the 
crowd of noble Saxon leaders who were quaffing the blood- 
red wine around their monarch.' 

" The envoy of Tosti moved up the hall, undismayed 
by the frowning countenances of all around him, until he 
made his obeisance before the throne of King Harold. 

" ' What terms,' he said, ' lord king, hath thy brother 
Tosti to hope if he should lay down his arms and crave 
peace at thy hands ? ' 

'"A brother's love,' cried the generous Harold, ' and 
the fair earldom of Northumberland.' 

" ' But should Tosti accept those terms,' continued the 
envoy, ' what lands shall be assigned to his faithful ally, 
Hardrada, King of Norway ? ' 

" ' Seven feet of English ground,' answered Harold, 
fiercely ; ' or as Hardrada is said to be a giant, perhaps we 
may allow him twelve inches more.' 

" The hall rang with acclamations, and cup and horn 
was filled to the Norwegian who should be speedily in 
possession of his English territory. 

" The baffled envoy retreated to carry to Tosti and his 
ally the ominous answer of his injured brother. It was 
then that the walls of Stamford, and the fatal Welland 
renowned in prophecy, beheld that direful conflict in which, 
after displaying the most undaunted valour, the King of 
Norway and Tosti both fell, with ten thousand of their 
bravest followers. Who would have thought that upon 
the proud day when this battle was won, the very gale 
which waved the Saxon banners in triumph was filling the 
Norman sails, and impelling them to the fatal shores of 
Sussex?" 



HAEOLD OF NORWAY. 183 

We are loth to mar the effect of this fine passage by 
any criticism of its historical accuracy. Yet we cannot 
well refrain from observing that Sir Walter was not 
quite so good an antiquary upon English as upon 
Scottish ground. He has here confounded Stamford 
Town, in a corner of Lincolnshire and on the river 
Welland, with Stamford Bridge, about seven miles east 
of York, and on the river Derwent. It was at the 
latter place, beyond all question, and on the 25th of 
September, that the battle was fought. The result 
was long undecided. Both the Harolds performed pro- 
digies of valour; and it was perhaps the fall of the 
one that decided the fortune of the day. Harold, King 
of Norway, was standing firm among the foremost — 
wielding, we may suppose, his redoubtable two-edged 
battle-axe — when, as Mr. Dasent relates it, a stray arrow 
smote him in the throat under the chin. The giant 
frame tottered ; a rush of blood spirted out of his 
mouth, and Harold Hardrada fell dead. Tosti also 
was among the slain. 

How vast was then the vicissitude produced by so 
few weeks ! The Saxon banner supreme at Stamford 
Bridge on the 25th of September, and struck down for 
ever at Hastings on the 14th of the next month ! 



VI 

THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE, 



COLLECTIONS of family papers have of late years 
much increased in both size and numbers. Even 
where no one of the name has risen to historical 
importance there are chests full of documents and 
letters that are lavishly poured forth. At present it 
not unfrequently happens that the records of a single 
not always very eminent house take up as many 
printed pages as would have been deemed sufficient 
thirty years ago to instruct a young student in the 
whole history of England or almost of Europe. 

We are far, however, from complaining of this, 
abundance. Even when a man was not himself 
distinguished, he may have had companionship or 
common action with those who were. By such means 
a thousand little traits of character may come un- 
expectedly to light. Still oftener there may, nay, 
there must, be reference to the domestic economies, 
the modes of living, and the manners and customs of 



* Hie Booh of Carlaverock. 2 vols., large quarto. Edinburgh, 
1873 (not published). 



188 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

past times. Thus, when family papers are selected 
with care and edited with judgment — as was eminently 
the case, for example, with the " Caldwell Collection," 
comprised in three quarto volumes, and printed for 
the Maitland Club in 1854 — they scarcely ever fail 
to yield fruit of price to the historian. 

In the collection now before us are contained the 
records of the Maxwell family, belonging to Lord 
Hemes, the present head of that ancient house, and 
confided by him to Mr. William Fraser for arrange- 
ment and annotation. The result has been a truly 
splendid work. These are two quarto volumes of the 
largest size, almost, indeed, rising to the dignity — as 
they certainly exceed the usual weight — of folios. 
The one volume is of 604 pages, the other of 590 : — 

" Yix illud lecti bis sex cervice subirent, 
Qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus." 

No expense, we may add, has been spared in the 
beautiful types, in the facsimiles of ancient autographs, 
and the engravings of family portraits or family seats. 
The book is not for sale; and the impression, we 
observe, has been limited to 150 copies, so that we 
should consider it beyond our sphere, and printed 
only for private circulation, had not Lord Hemes 
made it publici juris by presenting a copy in July last 
year to the library of the British Museum. 

Mr. Eraser, as editor of this collection, seems to us 
to have done his part with — we may say at least — 
perspicuity and candour. We have only to complain 
that, in the first half, at all events, of the eighteenth 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 189 

century, to which in these volumes our attention has 
been exclusively directed, he has made himself but 
very slightly acquainted with the other writers of the 
time. From this cause, as we conceive, he has left 
in obscurity some points which a wider reading would 
have enabled him to clear. To give only one instance 
— for we should take no pleasure in any long list of 
minute omissions — Mr. Eraser, in Lady Traquair's 
letter of January, 1724, has failed to see, or certainly, 
at least, has failed to explain, that the " Sir John " 
therein mentioned was one of the cant names for the 
Chevalier de St. George, or the Pretender, as we used 
to call him. Nor has he observed that the document 
there discussed is a letter of that prince, dated August 
20, 1723, and printed by Mr. Fraser in one of his 
preceding pages. 

Of the many personages who in these volumes are 
presented to us, there is only one that we shall here 
produce. We desire to give our readers some account 
of that lady who saved her husband's life from the ex- 
tremest peril, by the rare combination of high courage 
and inventive skill, a determined constancy of purpose, 
and a prompt versatility of means. 

Lady Winifred Herbert was the fifth and youngest 
daughter of the Marquis of Powis ; himself descended 
from the second son of the first Herbert Earl of Pem- 
broke. The exact year of her birth is nowhere to be 
found recorded. The marquis, her father, was a zealous 
Eoman Catholic, and, as may be supposed, a warm 
adherent of James the Second. He followed that prince 
in his exile, held the post of lord chamberlain in his 



190 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

melancholy Court, and received from him further the 
patent of duke, which was never acknowledged in Eng- 
land. He died in 1697, but his wife and daughter 
continued to reside at St. Germains under the protec- 
tion of the queen, Mary of Modena. 

William fifth Earl of Nithsdale had been left a 
minor by his father's untimely death, but was brought 
up by his surviving parent in the same principles of 
devoted attachment to the House of Stuart and to the 
Church of Kome. On attaining his majority he re- 
paired to St. Germains, and did homage to the prince, 
whom he continued to regard as his rightful king. A. 
more tender motive arose to detain him. He fell in 
love with Lady Winifred Herbert, who proved no in- 
exorable beauty. They were married in the spring of 
1699, and he bore away his bride to his house and fair 
gardens of Terregles. Since her noble exploit in the 
Tower these gardens have been examined with interest 
for any trace of the departed heroine. But, as Mr. 
Eraser informs us, they have been greatly changed since 
her time. Only " some old beech hedges and a broad 
green terrace still remain much the same as then." 

We may take occasion to observe of the new- 
married pair that there was some diversity in the 
spelling of their name. English writers have most 
commonly inserted an i, and made it Nithisdale ; but 
the earl and countess themselves signed Nithsdaill. 

The countess bore her lord five children, three of 
whom, however, died in early childhood. At the insur- 
rection of 1715 they had but two surviving — a son, 
William Lord Maxwell, and an infant daughter, Lady 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 191 

Anne. And here in ordinary course might close the 
record of her life, but for the shining events of 1715, 
which called forth her energies both to act and to 
endure. 

It need scarcely be related even to the least literary 
of our readers, how, in 1715, the standard of the Cheva- 
lier — " James the Third," as his adherents called him 
— was raised, by Lord Mar in the Highlands and by 
Mr. Forster and Lord Derwentwater in Northumber- 
land. Lord Kenmure gave the like example to the 
Scottish peers of the southern counties, setting out to 
join Forster with a small band of retainers. Consider- 
ing the principles of Lord Nithsdale in Church and 
State, his course could not be doubtful. He, too, at the 
head of a few horsemen, appeared in Forster's camp, 
and shared the subsequent fortunes of that little army. 
To Lord Kenmure, who was a Protestant, was assigned 
the chief command of the Scottish levies. But, as 
Mr. Fraser tells us, " the Earl of Nithsdale, from his 
position, and from the devotion of his family to the 
House of Stuart, would have been placed at the head 
of the insurrection in the north of Scotland had he not 
been a Koman Catholic." But though Mr. Fraser has 
printed " north," he, beyond all doubt, means " south." 
There was never any question as to either Kenmure's 
or Nithsdale's command beyond the Forth. 

We need not relate in any detail the well-known 
fate of these hasty levies. They found themselves 
encompassed at Preston by a regular force under 
General Wills, and were compelled to surrender with- 
out obtaining any better terms than the promise to await 



192 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

the orders of the Government and protect them from 
any immediate slaughter by the soldiery. It was only 
a short respite that most of the chiefs then obtained, 
They were at once sent off as prisoners to London. 
The painful circumstances of their entry are described 
as follows in the journal of Lady Cowper, the wife of 
the Lord Chancellor : — 

"December 5, 1715. — This week the prisoners were 
brought to town from Preston. They came in with their 
arms .tied, and their horses, whose bridles were' taken off, 
led each by a soldier. The mob insulted them terribly, 
carrying a warming-pan before them, and saying a 
thousand barbarous things, which some of the prisoners 
returned with spirit. The chief of my father's family 
was amongst them. He is above seventy years old. A 
desperate fortune had drove him from home, in hopes to 
have repaired it. I did not see them come into town, nor 
let any of my children do so. I thought it would be an 
insulting of the relatives I had here, though almost every- 
body went to see them." 

The captive peers being thus brought to London 
were sent for safe custody to the Tower, while prepara- 
tions for their trial by the House of Lords were making 
in Westminster Hall. Here again we may borrow from 
Lady Cowper's journal : — 

"February 9, 1716. — The day of the trials. My lord 
was named High Steward by the king, to his vexation 
and mine; but it could not be helped, and so we must 
submit, though we both heartily washed it had been Lord 

Nottingham I was told it was customary to make 

fine liveries upon this occasion, but I had them all plain. 
I think it very wrong to make a parade upon so dismal an 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 193 

occasion as that of putting to death one's fellow-creatures, 
nor could I go to the trial to see them receive their sen- 
tences, having a relation among them — Lord Widdrington. 
The prince was there, and came home much touched with 
compassion. What a pity it is that such cruelties should 
be necessary ! " 

But were they necessary ? Certainly not, according to 
the temper of present times ; while in 1716, on the 
contrary, far from exceeding, they seem rather to have 
fallen short of the popular expectation and demands. 

The trials were quickly despatched. None of the 
prisoners could deny that they had risen in arms 
against the king. It only remained for them to plead 
" Guilty," and throw themselves on the royal mercy. 
They were condemned to death as traitors; and the 
execution of Lord Nithsdale, with that of others, was 
appointed to take place upon Tower Hill on Wednes- 
day, the 24th of the month. 

While Forster's insurrection lasted Lady Nithsdale 
remained with her children at Terregles. But on 
learning her lord's surrender and his imprisonment in 
London, she resolved at once to join him. Leaving 
her infant daughter in the charge of her sister-in-law, 
the Countess of Traquair, and burying the family 
papers in a nook of the gardens, she set out, attended 
only by her faithful maid, who had been with her ever 
since her marriage, a Welshwoman, Cecilia Evans by 
name. A journey from Scotland in mid-winter was 
then no such easy task. She made her way on horse- 
back across the Border, and then from Newcastle to 
York. There she found a place in the coach for her- 



194 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

self alone, and was forced to hire a horse for Evans. 
Nor did her troubles end there, as she writes from 
Stamford, on Christmas Day, to Lady Traquair — 

" The ill weather, ways, and other accidents, has made 
the coach not get further than Grentuni (Grantham) ; and 
the snow is so deep it is impossible it should stir without 
some change of weather ; upon which I have again hired 
horses, and shall go the rest of the journey on horseback to 
London, though the snow is so deep that our horses yester- 
day were in several places almost buried in it. .... To- 
morrow I shall set forward again. I must confess such a 
journey, I believe, was scarce ever made, considering the 
weather, by a woman. But an earnest desire compasses a 
great deal with God's help. If I met my dear lord well, 
and am so happy as to be able to serve him, I shall think 
all my trouble well repaid." 

The writer adds : " I think myself most fortunate 
in having complied with your kind desire of leaving 
my little girl with you. Had I her with me, she would 
have been in her grave by this time, with the excessive 
cold." It was indeed a season of most unusual rigour. 
The Thames was fast bound in ice, and many wayfarers 
throughout England were, it is said, found frozen to 
death. 

The countess reached London in safety, but, on her 
arrival, was thrown by the hardships of the journey 
into " a violent sickness," which confined her for some 
days to her bed. All this time she was anxiously 
pleading for admittance to her lord in the Tower, 
which at last, though with some difficulty and under 
some restrictions, she obtained. As she writes : " Now 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 195 

and then by favour I get a sight of him." There are 
some hurried notes from her at this period to Lady 
Traquair. But her proceedings are far more fully to 
be traced in a letter which some years afterwards she 
addressed to her sister, Lady Lucy Herbert, the abbess 
of an English convent at Bruges. It thus commences : 
" Dear sister, my lord's escape is such an old story now, 
that I have almost forgot it ; but since you desire the 
account, to whom I have too many obligations to refuse 
it, I will endeavour to call it to mind, and be as exact 
in the relation as I can possible." And so the narra- 
tive proceeds. 

This most interesting letter had remained unknown 
for many years. It was not till 1792 that it was pub- 
lished by the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, in 
the first volume of their " Translations." But it came 
from a faulty, or, rather we may call it, a touched-up 
copy, putting "the king," for example, where Lady 
Nithsdale had written " the elector," and often inter- 
spersing the phrase " his Majesty," which she would 
never have applied to George the First. In the same 
spirit a few trifling inaccuracies of grammar and lan- 
guage are corrected. 

Sometimes, also, it might be desired to soften some 
roughness of tone. Thus, for example, the published 
letter makes the countess say, in reference to the joint 
petition which it was intended to lay before the House 
of Lords, "We were, however, disappointed, for the 
Duke of St. Albans, who had promised my Lady Der- 
wentwater to present it, failed in his word." But what 
Lady Nithsdale really wrote was this : " Being disap- 



196 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

pointed because the Duke of , I forget which of 

the bastard dukes." 

In all these cases the motive of the finishing 
touches seems perfectly clear. But there are some 
other changes that really seem made only for the love 
of change. Is the phrase, as Lady Nithsdale wrote, 
" I took the resolution to endeavour his escape," 
improved by making it, "I formed the resolution to 
attempt his escape?" Or, again, when the countess 
describes how, when at St. James's Palace, she pre- 
sented the separate petition to George the First, he 
turned from her while she clung to the skirts of his 
coat, and in that manner was dragged along the 
passage on her knees until she fell back fainting, 
and the petition dropped to the ground in the 
" struggle " — Lady Mthsdale calls it — then why alter 
it to " scuffle " ? 

The original, meanwhile, in Lady Nithsdale's own 
handwriting, was still preserved at Bruges. It was 
brought from thence so recently as 1828, as a present 
from the English nuns, and is now among Lord 
Herries's papers. As Mr. Fraser informs us, it consists 
of eleven closely written pages of paper quarto size. 
At the foot of the last leaf a small piece has been cut 
out, which is thought to have contained the signature 
of the writer, and to have been abstracted by some one 
of the autograph collectors — an evil-minded race, alas ! 
to whom, in many cases, the eighth commandment 
appears to be quite unknown. 

This letter is not dated. The omission might seem 
to be sufficiently supplied by a copy in the library at 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 197 

Terregles, which, as Mr. Fraser assures us, is " finely 
bound in morocco," and which bears the date " Koyal 
Palais de Kome, April 16, 1718." This date is ac- 
cordingly accepted by Mr. Fraser. We must confess, 
however, that we see very strong objections to it, which, 
though derived from Mr. Fraser's volumes, have not, 
it appears, occurred to Mr. Fraser himself. 

In the first place, although Lord Nithsdale was at 
Borne in April, 1718, Lady Mthsdale certainly was 
not. This may be shown beyond dispute from the 
correspondence now before us. In 1717 Lady Niths- 
dale had gone to a place she calls " Flesh," that is, 
La Fleche, in Anjou. There she received a visit from 
her nephew, Lord Linton, eldest son of the Earl of 
Traquair. We find her writing to her sister-in-law 
on the 1st of September, 1717: "I hope you have heard 
something from my nephew L., who came to take his 
leave of me on Friday last, to begin his journey into 
Italie, and was to leave Angiers yesterday in order to 
it." On the 1st of January, 1718, we find her writing 
again: "My husband was very well the last letter I 

had from him I hope very soon to hear of your 

son's being happily arrived at his journey's end." 
And on the 1st of May following : " In one of the 
10th of March from my husband, he expected his 
nephew the next day." On the 22nd of June Lord 
Linton writes himself from Rome as follows : " I am 
glad to hear that the good lady I saw at La Fleche 
is well, though I have not as yet received any letter 
from her ; yet I did not fail to deliver the commission 
she gave me for her husband." It is quite clear from 



198 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

these extracts that Lady Nithsdale was not in the 
Eternal City during any part of the period mentioned ; 
and that the date of "Borne, April 16, 1718," assigned 
to her letter is entirely erroneous. 

There is another circumstance which leads us to 
think that the real date was several years later. Lady 
Nithsdale mentions in this letter — as we shall presently 
see — a servant of the name of Mitchell, who followed 
Lord Nithsdale abroad, and who, she adds, " is now 
very well placed with our young master." The allu- 
sion is, of course, to the exiled royal family. But 
" the Chevalier de St. George," or, as we used to call 
him, "the Old Pretender," was in 1718 about thirty 
years of age. He had no especial claim to this dis- 
tinguishing epithet as " our young master ; " and is 
constantly mentioned in this correspondence as " our 
master," without any epithet at all. It is probable, 
therefore, that the allusion is rather to his son Charles 
Edward, who was born in December, 1720, and who 
from his early boyhood appears, according to the 
custom of princes, to have had a small household 
assigned him. It may also perhaps be thought that 
a longer interval would better accord with that failure 
of recollection on some points, which in her opening 
sentence Lady Nithsdale mentions. 

Passing from this point of chronology, in which 
we cannot help thinking that the editor might have 
shown a little more critical care, we have further to 
complain of a slight injustice that he does to, we 
admit, not a very great historian. In one of his notes 
to the first volume, he remarks : " It is certainly 






THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 199 

necessary here to notice that Smollett was so ignorant 
of this fact, that, in his ' History of England,' he says 
that the Earl of Mthsdale made his escape in woman's 
apparel, furnished or conveyed to him by his own 
mother." No doubt that Smollett did commit the 
error here described. But if Mr. Fraser had been 
more widely conversant with the other writers of that 
or the next ensuing period, he would have known that 
such was then the common impression or belief. As 
the agent in Lord Mthsdale's escape, his wife is not 
mentioned, but his mother instead, by Boyer, John 
Wesley, and, above all, Tindall in his valuable 
" History of England." So far as we can see, it was 
not till the publication of Lady Mthsdale's own 
narrative that the true facts of the transaction were 
established. It seems a little hard, therefore, to single 
out Smollett for especial blame, when he did no more 
than repeat the current and accepted story of his time. 
Full of interest as is Lady Mthsdale's letter, we do 
not propose to give any further extracts from it in this 
place, since it has several times already, though with 
verbal variations, appeared in print. It may be found^ 
for instance, in the appendix to the second volume of 
Lord Mahon's "History of England." Moreover, it 
is a little confused iu its arrangement. Thus the 
delivery of her petition to the king, which should 
stand first of the events in order of time, stands by 
retrospect the last in her relation. But we will en- 
deavour, with Mr. Fraser's aid, to deduce from it a 
narrative of her lord's escape, which shall be more 
concise and equally clear. 



200 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

Lord Nithsdale was confined in the house of 
Colonel D'Oyly, lieutenant deputy of the Tower, in 
a small room which looked out on Water Lane, the 
ramparts, and the wharf, and was 60 feet from the 
ground. The way from the room was through the 
Council Chamber and the passages and stairs of 
Colonel D'Oyly's house. The door of his room was 
guarded by one sentinel, that floor by two, the passages 
and stairs by several, and the outer gate by two. 
Escape under such circumstances seemed to be im- 
possible, and, as Lady Mthsdale notes, it was one 
of her main difficulties, when the moment came, to 
persuade her lord to acquiesce in an attempt which, 
as he believed, would end in nothing but ignominious 
failure. 

The countess still placed some reliance on the 
proceedings that impended in the House of Lords. 
There, on the 22nd of February, only two days 
before that fixed for the execution, a petition was 
presented, praying the House to intercede with the 
king in favour of the peers under sentence of death. 
Lady Mthsdale herself stood in the lobby, with many 
other ladies of rank, imploring the compassion of each 
peer as he passed. A motion to the same effect as the 
petition was made in the House, and, notwithstanding 
the resistance of the Government, it was carried through 
the unexpected aid of Lord Nottingham, and by a 
majority of five. But there was added to it a proviso 
limiting the intercession with the king to such of the 
condemned lords as should deserve his mercy. The 
meaning was that those only should be recommended 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 201 

for pardon who would give information against others 
who had engaged, although less openly, in the same 
unprosperous cause. This extinguished all Lady 
Nithsdale's hopes. She well knew, as she says, that 
her lord would never purchase life on such terms. 
" Nor," adds the high-minded woman, " would I have 
desired it." 

The axe, as we have seen, was appointed to do its 
bloody work on the next day but one, and there was 
no time to lose if Lady Nithsdale sought to carry out 
the project she had secretly formed of effecting her 
lord's escape in woman's clothes. No sooner was the 
debate concluded than she hastened from the House 
of Peers to the Tower, where, putting on a face of joy, 
she went up to the guards at each station and told them 
that she brought good news. "No more fear for the 
prisoners," she cried, "since now their petition has 
passed." Nor, in saying this, was she without an 
object. She rightly judged that the soldiers, believing 
that the prisoners were on the point of being pardoned, 
would become, of course, less vigilant. Moreover, at 
each station she drew some money from her pocket, 
and gave it to the guards, bidding them drink " the 
king's health and the peers'." But she was careful, as 
she says, to be sparing in what she gave ; enough to 
put the guard in good humour, and not enough to raise 
their suspicions as though their connivance was desired. 

All this time she had never acquainted the earl 
with her design. This plainly appears from a letter 
which Lord Herries has published, dated on this very 
day, the 22nd. It is addressed by Lord Nithsdale 



202 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

to his brother-in-law, the Earl of Traquair, and bids 
an affectionate farewell to him and his sister, speaking 
of himself as fully expecting and calmly resigned 
to death. 

The next- morning, the last before the intended 
execution, was spent by Lady Mthsdale in the needful 
preparations, and, above all, in securing the assistance 
of one Mrs. Morgan, a friend of her faithful Evans. 
When she was ready to go, she sent for Mrs. Mills, at 
whose house she was lodging, and said, " Finding now 
there is no further room for hope of my lord's pardon, 
nor longer time than this night, I am resolved to 
endeavour his escape. I have provided all that is 
requisite for it ; and I hope you will not refuse to 
come along with me to the end that he may pass for 
you. Nay, more, I must beg you will come imme- 
diately, because we are full late." Lady Nithsdale 
had, with excellent judgment, delayed this appeal to 
the last possible moment ; so that her landlady might 
be put to an immediate decision on the spur of pity, 
and have no leisure to think of the danger she was 
herself incurring by any share in the escape of a man 
convicted of treason. Mrs. Mills having in this sur- 
prise assented, Lady Nithsdale bade Mrs. Morgan, who 
was tall and slender — her height not unlike Lord 
Nithsdale's — to put under her own riding-hood another 
which Lady Nithsdale had provided, and after this 
all three stepped into the coach, which was ready at 
the door. As they drove to the Tower, Lady Mthsdale 
has noted that she never ceased to talk with her two 
companions, so as to leave them no time to reflect. 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 203 

On arriving at their destination the countess found 
that, as usual, she was allowed to take in but one per- 
son at a time. She first took Mrs. Morgan, and while 
they went upstairs spoke, so as to be overheard, of the 
necessity that, besides the Lords' vote, she should pre- 
sent a separate petition of her own. Within the 
prisoner's chamber she bade Mrs. Morgan take out and 
leave the riding-hood that she had brought beneath 
her clothes, and then conducted her out again, saying 
as she went, " Pray do me the kindness to send my 
maid to me that I may be dressed, else I shall be too 
late with my petition." 

Having thus dismissed Mrs. Morgan, the countess 
next brought in Mrs. Mills. As they passed she bade 
Mrs. Mills hold her handkerchief to her face, as though 
in tears, designing that the earl should go forth in the 
same manner, and thus conceal, in part at least, his 
face from the guards. When alone with him in his 
chamber, they proceeded as they best could to disguise 
him. He had a long beard, which there was not time 
to shave, but the countess daubed it over with some 
white paint that she had provided. In like manner 
she put some red paint on his cheeks and some yellow on 
his eyebrows, which were black and thick, while Mrs. 
Mills's were blonde and slight ; and she had also ready 
some ringlets of the same coloured hair. Next she 
made Mrs. Mills take off the riding-hood in which she 
came and put on instead that which Mrs. Morgan had 
brought. Finally they proceeded to equip Lord 
Nithsdale in female attire by the aid of the riding- 
hood which the guards had just before seen on Mrs. 



204 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

Mills — by the aid also of all Lady Nithsdale's petti- 
coats but one. 

Matters being so far matured, Lady Nithsdale 
opened the door and led out the real Mrs. Mills, saying 
aloud, in a tone of great concern, " Dear Mrs. Catherine, 
I must beg you to go in all haste and look for my 
woman, for she certainly does not know what o'clock it 
is, and has forgot the petition I am to give, which 
should I miss is irreparable, having but this one night ; 
let her make all the haste she can possible, for I shall 
be upon thorns till she comes." 

In the anteroom there were then eight or nine 
persons, the wives and daughters of the guards ; they 
all seemed to feel for the countess, and quickly made 
way for her companion. The sentry at the outer door 
in like manner opened it with alacrity, and thus Mrs. 
Mills went out. Lady Mthsdale then returning to her 
lord, put a finishing touch to his disguise, and waited 
patiently until it was nearly dark, and she was afraid 
that candles would be brought. This she determined 
was the best time to go ; so she led forth by the hand 
the pretended Mrs. Mills, who, as though weeping, 
held up a handkerchief to her eyes, while Lady Mths- 
dale, with every expression of grief, loudly lamented 
herself that her maid Evans had been so neglectful, 
and had ruined her by her long delay. " So, dear Mrs. 
Betty," she added, " run and bring her with you, for 
God's sake ; you know my lodgings, and if ever you 
made haste in your life, do it now, for I am almost 
distracted with this disappointment." The guards, 
not a little mollified by Lady Nithsdale's gifts the day 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 205 

before, and fully persuaded that a reprieve was at hand, 
had not taken much heed of the ladies whom they saw 
pass to and fro, nor exactly reckoned their number. 
They opened the door, without the least suspicion, to 
Lady Nithsdale and the false Mrs. Mills, and both 
accordingly went out. But no sooner past the door 
than Lady Nithsdale slipped behind her lord on the 
way downstairs, and made him precede her, lest the 
guards, on looking back, should observe his gait, as 
far different from a lady's. All the time that they 
walked down she continued to call to him aloud in a 
tone of great distress, entreating him to make all pos- 
sible haste, for the sake of her petition ; and at the 
foot of the last stairs she found, as agreed, her trusty 
Evans, into whose hands she put him. 

It had further been settled by Lady Nithsdale that 
Mr. Mills should wait for them in the open space before 
the Tower. Mr. Mills had come accordingly, but was 
so thoroughly convinced of the hopeless nature of the 
enterprise, that, on seeing Mrs. Evans and the false 
Mrs. Mills approach him, he grew quite dazed, and, 
in his confusion, instead of helping them, ran home. 
Evans, however, retained her presence of mind. 
She took her precious charge, in the first place, to 
some friends on whom she could rely, and thence 
proceeding alone to Mr. Mills's house, learnt from 
him which was the hiding-place he had provided. 
To this they now conducted the earl. It was a house 
just before the Court of Guards, and belonged to a poor 
woman who had but one tiny room, up a small pair of 
stairs, and containing one poor little bed. 



206 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

Meanwhile Lady Nithsdale, after seeing her hus- 
band pass the gates in his disguise, had returned to 
the chamber, lately his, upstairs. There, so as to be 
heard outside, she affected to speak to him, and to 
answer as if he had spoken to her, imitating his voice 
as nearly as she could, and walking up and down, as 
though they had walked and talked together. This 
she continued to do until she thought he had time to 
get out of his enemies' reach. " I then began to think," 
she adds, " it was fit for me to get out of it also." Then 
opening the door to depart, she went half out, and 
holding it in her hand so that those without might 
hear, she took what seemed to be a solemn leave 
of her lord for that night, complaining again of 
Evans's delay, and saying there was no remedy but to 
go herself in search of her. She promised that if the 
Tower were still open after she had done, she would see 
him again that night ; but that otherwise, as soon as 
ever it was opened in the morning, she would cer- 
tainly be with him, and hoped to bring him good 
news. Before shutting the door she drew to the 
inside a little string that lifted up a wooden latch, so 
that it could only be opened by those within, and she 
then shut the door with a flap, so that it might be 
securely closed. This being done, she took her 
departure. As she passed by she told the earl's valet 
de chambre, who knew nothing of the plan of escape, 
that my lord would not have candles till he called for 
them, for that he would finish some prayers first. 

On leaving the Tower Lady Nithsdale observed 
several hackney-coaches waiting in the open space, and 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 207 

taking one, she drove first to her own lodgings. There 
she dismissed the coach for fear of being traced, and 
went on in a sedan-chair to the house of Anne Duchess 
of Buccleuch, widow of the ill-fated Monmouth. The 
duchess had promised to be ready to go with her to 
present, even almost at the last moment, her single 
petition ; and Lady Mthsdale now left a message at 
her door, with her " most humble service," to say that 
her Grace need not give herself any further trouble, it 
being now thought fit to give a general petition in the 
name of all. 

From the Duchess of Buccleuch's Lady Mthsdale, 
again changing her conveyance, and calling a second 
sedan-chair, went on to the Duchess of Montrose's. 
The duke was on the G-overnment side, but the duchess 
was her personal friend. Lady Mthsdale, being shown 
into a room upstairs, the duchess hastened to join her. 
Then, as Lady Mthsdale writes, "as my heart was 
very light, I smiled when she came into the chamber 
and ran to her in great joy. She really started when 
she saw me, and since owned that she thought my 
head was turned with trouble, till I told her my good 
fortune." 

The duchess, on hearing what had passed, cordially 
took part in the joy of her friend, and declared that 
she would go at once to Court and see how the news of 
the escape was received. She went accordingly, and 
next time she saw Lady Mthsdale told her that " the 
elector " — for so she termed him — had, in her own 
phrase, " stormed terribly," and said he was betrayed, 
for he was sure it could not have been done without 



208 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

some connivance ; and he sent immediately two of his 
suite to the Tower to see that the other prisoners were 
well guarded. On the opposite side it was related that 
his Majesty — perhaps at a later and calmer moment — 
made a far more good-natured remark. He is rumoured 
to have said on Lord Mthsdale's escape, " It was the 
best thing that a man in his situation could do." In- 
deed, according to one account, Lord Mthsdale's name 
was included in a list to be sent out that very evening 
of the peers to be reprieved. In fact, only two — Lords 
Derwentwater and Kenmure — were executed the next 
day. 

Lady Mthsdale paid no more visits that evening. 
From the duchess's house she went straight to her hus- 
band's hiding-place. There, in that single narrow room 
upstairs, they remained closely shut up, making as little 
stir as possible, and relying for their sustenance on 
some bread and wine which Mrs. Mills brought them 
in her pocket. Thus they continued for some days, 
until there arose a favourable opportunity for Lord 
Mthsdale to leave the kingdom. A servant of the 
Venetian ambassador, Mitchell by name, was ordered 
to go down to Dover in his Excellency's coach-and-six, 
and bring back his Excellency's brother. By the con- 
trivance of Mitchell, and without the ambassador's 
knowledge, the earl slipped on a livery coat and 
travelled as one in the ambassador's train to Dover, 
where, hiring a small vessel, he crossed without sus- 
picion, and, taking Mitchell with him, landed safe at 
Calais. Lady Mthsdale, for whom no search was made ? 
remained for the time in London. 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 209 

In concluding the narrative of this remarkable 
escape, we think that even the most cursory reader 
cannot fail to notice its close resemblance to that other 
escape of Count Lavalette from the Conciergerie prison 
at Paris on the evening of the 20th December, 1815. 
The countess having changed dresses with her husband 
in his prison chamber, he passed out in woman's attire, 
leaning on his daughter's arm and holding a handker- 
chief to his face, as though in an agony of tears. Yet, 
great as is the likeness between the two cases, it arose 
from coincidence, and not at all from imitation. The 
detailed account of the whole affair, as given by Count 
Lavalette in the second volume of his "Memoirs," 
clearly shows that they had never heard of Lady 
Nithsdale, and knew nothing of any similar attempt in 
England. 

The heroine of this later deliverance was a niece of 
the Empress Josephine ; her maiden name Emilie de 
Beauharnais. Her letters since her marriage, several 
of which we have seen, are signed Beauharnais-Lava- 
lette. She had been in childbirth only a few weeks 
before the 20th of December, her nerves were still 
unstrung, and her strength was not yet restored. There 
was also a great difficulty in the way of the disguise 
which she had planned ; she was tall and slender in 
person, while Count Lavalette was short and stout. 
But muffled up as he was, the difference passed un- 
perceived by the officers on duty, and his escape from 
the prison was successfully accomplished. 

It is well known, and we need not repeat, how the 
generous spirit of Sir Eobert Wilson, with two others 

p 



210 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

of our countrymen, effected a few days afterwards his 
further escape from France to Belgium. The husband 
was safe, but hard — hard indeed — was the fate of the 
wife. She had to remain behind in the prison 
chamber, there to sustain, on the discovery of the 
escape, the first fury of the exasperated jailers, all 
trembling for their places. During six weeks she 
was kept in close captivity, all access of friends or 
domestics, or even of her daughter, denied her. Weak 
in health as she had been from the first, it is no 
wonder that her mind would not bear the strain that 
was put upon it. Her reason became obscured, and 
soon after she was set free from prison she had to be 
removed to a Maison de Sante. When, after six years 
of exile, her husband obtained his pardon and was 
able to return to France, she did not know him again. 

The mental malady of Madame Lavalette hung 
upon her for full twelve years. At the end of that 
time her reason was, partially at least, restored, and 
she could go back to her husband's house. But she 
continued subject to a settled melancholy, and could 
only lead a life of strict retirement. Her husband died 
in 1830, while she survived till June, 1855. 

Keverting to Lady Nithsdale, we may observe that ; 
while the publication of her narrative in 1792 made< 
clear all the circumstances of her lord's escape,, 
nothing further was known of his or her further r 
fortunes beyond the dates of their respective deaths 
in Italy. It is therefore with pleasure that, in the 
correspondence now before us, we find numerous letters 
from the countess subsequent to the great act and 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 211 

exploit of her life on the 23rd of February, 1716. To 
these letters, as well as to some others by which they 
are illustrated, we shall now apply ourselves, hoping 
that our readers may feel some part at least of the 
interest that we do in the life of this high-minded 
lady. 

Lord Nithsdale, on landing at Calais, had gone 
straight to Paris. There, in the course of the spring, 
he received a pressing invitation from the prince, 
whom he constantly regarded as his rightful king, 
One phrase of that letter is cited by his nephew, Lord 
Linton : " As long as I have a crust of bread in the 
world, assure yourself you shall always have a share 
of it." The earl accordingly set out for Italy, there 
to do homage, and remain for at least a few weeks' 
visit. The countess, on her part, finding no pursuit 
made for her in London, ventured, a little later, to 
ride back to Scotland with her faithful Evans, desiring 
to arrange her family affairs. For several weeks she 
lived without molestation, and took a fond — it proved 
to be a final — farewell of her own Terregles. When 
again in London she was advised that she was in great 
risk of arrest, and would do wisely to leave England. 
Embarking accordingly, she landed on the coast of 
Flanders, where she was detained some time by a 
miscarriage and dangerous illness. Only half-recovered, 
she set out again to join, first her sister at Bruges, 
and next, in October, her husband at Lille. Alas! 
that reunion did not bring her all the happiness that 
she had fondly hoped. Her letter from Lille to Lady 
Traquair has not been preserved, but a later one from 



212 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

Paris gives a full account of her proceedings and 
plans : it is dated February 29, 1717. 

" I could not resolve to leave this place, dearest sister, 
without giving you an account of the situation of your 
brother's affairs and mine. I suppose you have received 
mine from Lille, so you are acquainted with the reasons of 
our quitting that place, and consequently have only to tell 
you that I immediately went to my old mistress [Mary of 
Modena, Queen Dowager of England], who, though she 
received me very kindly, yet there was great complaints 
of poverty, and no likelihood of my getting into her service 
again. My first attempt was to endeavour to get a recom- 
mendation from her to her son to take my husband into 
his service; but all in vain, it being alleged that as 
matters now stand with him, he could not augment his 

family My next business was to see what I could 

get to live on, that we might take our resolutions where 
to go accordingly. But all that I could get was 100 livres 
a month to maintain me in everything — meat, drink, fire, 
candle, washing, clothes, lodging, servants' wages ; in fine, 
all manner of necessaries. My husband has 200 livres a 
month, but considering his way of managing, it was im- 
possible to live upon it For, let me do what I will, 

he cannot be brought to submit to live according to what 
he has ; and when I endeavoured to persuade him to keep 
in compass, he attributed my advice to my grudging him 
everything, which stopped my mouth, since I am very 
sure that I would not [grudge] my heart's blood if it could, 
do him any service. .... It was neither in gaming, com- • 
pany, nor much drinking, that it was spent, but in having ; 
the nicest of meat and wine; and all the service I could I 
do was to see he was not cheated in the buying it. I had I 
a little, after our meeting at Lille, endeavoured to persuade 
him to go back to his master, upon the notice he received 
that 50 livres a month was taken off of his pension ; but) 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 213 

that I did not dare persist in, for he seemed to imagine 
that I had a mind to be rid of him, which one would have 
thought could scarce come into his mind. 

" And now, he finding, what I had often warned him, 
that we could get no more, some of his friends has per- 
suaded him to follow his master, he having sent him 
notice where he was going, and that he might come after 
him if he pleased; and I, having no hopes of getting any- 
thing out of England, am forced to go to the place where 
my son is, to endeavour to live, the child and me, upon 
what I told you. All my satisfaction is, that at least my 
husband has twice as much to maintain himself and man 
as I have ; so I hope when he sees there is no resource, as, 
indeed, now there is not, having sold all, even to the 
necessary little plate I took so much pains to bring over, 
he will live accordingly, which will be some comfort to 
me, though I have the mortification to be from him, which, 
after we met again, I hoped never to have separated ; but 
God's will be done, and I submit to this cross, as well as 
many others I have had in the world, though I must con- 
fess living from a husband I love so well is a very great 

one He was to be at Lions last Tuesday, and I 

cannot hear from him till I am arrived at La Flesh, for 
I go from hence to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. . . . 
Pray burn this as soon as you have read it, and keep the 
contents to yourself." 

Lady Nithsdale, it will be noticed, speaks of 
having no hopes of anything from England. Her 
meaning here is best elucidated by the following 
passage from her long letter to Lady Lucy Herbert, 
which refers to the scene at Court, when she was 
dragged along the passage by the skirts of George 
the First : — 

"My being so rudely treated had made a noise, and 



214 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

gave no good reputation to the Duke of Hanover; for 
several said, what had they brought themselves to ? For 
the kings of England was never used to refuse a petition 
from the poorest woman's hand ; and to use a person of ine- 
quality in such a manner as he had done was a piece of 
unheard-of brutality. These talks made the elector have 
a particular dislike to me, which he showed afterwards ; 
for when all the ladies whose lords had been concerned in 
this business put in claims for their jointures, mine was 
given in amongst the rest ; but he said I was not, nor did 
deserve, the same privilege, so I was excepted, and he 
would never hear speak in my favour." 

We give the passage as Lady Nithsdale wrote it, 
not desiring to emulate, even at a humble distance, 
the very great politeness of the Scottish Society of 
Antiquaries. But we may observe that these words 
of the countess, like many others from her pen, are 
most strongly coloured by political resentment. Un- 
generous as was, beyond all doubt, the exception made 
of Lady Nithsdale in the matter of the peeresses' 
jointures, there is no ground to regard it otherwise 
than as a ministerial measure — not a tittle of evidence 
to derive it personally from the king. We may add 
that, judging from the records of this reign, we do 
not believe that George the First, whatever may have 
been his other failings, was capable of the petty spite 
which is here imputed to him. 

In her letter from Paris Lady Nithsdale mentions 
that she was going to La Fleche, on purpose to be 
with her son, who, we may conclude, was receiving his 
education at the great Jesuit College there established. 
From La Fleche she continued her correspondence 



THE COUNTESS OP NITHSDALE. 215 

with Lady Traquair ; and, for fear of its being in- 
tercepted, commonly signed herself "W. Joanes," or 
sometimes " W. Johnstone," while she addressed her 
sister countess as " Mrs. Young." 

Writing on the 10th of June, 1717, after reverting 
to the recovery from an illness of her nephew Lord 
Linton, then in France, she gives the last news of her 
husband : — 

"Now that I have given you an account of what is 
nearest to you, I must let you know that your friend and 
mine is well, at least was so the last time I was so happy 
as to hear from him. He has had another great preser- 
vation, being six days in so great a danger at sea that all 
the seamen left off working, and left themselves to the 
mercy of the waves; and was at last cast into Antibes, 
from whence they coasted it to Lighorn. However, he is 
now safe with his master, and both of them in good health. 
I hope these two narrow escapes in so short a time is not 
for nothing, and that God reserves him for some great 
good." 

Lord Mthsdale, however, was not well pleased with 
Italy. He did not receive from the Chevalier the 
cordial welcome to which, with good reason, he deemed 
himself entitled ; and was exposed to divers mortifica- 
tions at that melancholy little court, then established 
at Urbino. Nor was he at all edified by his nearer 
view of the Pope's government in ecclesiastical or in 
civil affairs. Here are his own words to Lady Niths- 
dale as she transcribes them : " Be assured there is 
nothing in this damnable country that can tend to the 
good either of one's soul or body." 



216 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

We must say that we give Lord Hemes great 
credit for his candour in allowing the passage to be 
printed without change or comment, since we dare say 
that no very zealous Koman Catholic could read it 
without something of an Abi Satanas ! feeling. 

Lady Mthsdale herself may have disliked still 
more what follows, as she reports it to Lady Tra- 
quair : — 

" The remainder of his letter did not much please me, 
it running all upon the inconveniences of living where he 
was, and a full and fixed resolution of leaving his master. 
.... However, as I sent him word, I hope God Almighty 
reserved his reward for a better place, and that after the 
favour he had received in his two late preservations, he 
ought also to accept the trials from the same hand, with 
some other little motives for the doing it, whose reflections 
I hoped might render it more easy as well as meritorious. 
But he answered it in so great a banter upon my virtue 
and resignation, that I believe that it will be the last 
time that I shall venture to inspire him with any such 
thoughts, not doubting that he makes better use of them 
than I do. But it proceeded from my good will alone. 
However, in what regards his temporal good, I shall not 
be so far wanting in my duty as not to tell him my 
thoughts, with a reference to his better judgment ; after 
which I have performed my part, and shall submit, as I 
ever have done, to what he thinks fit." 

Lady Mthsdale therefore, in her next ensuing 
letter, takes her stand on temporal grounds : — 

"You may be sure, my dear lord, that having you 
with me, or near me, would be the greatest natural satis- 
faction I could have in this world ; but I should be a very 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 217 

ill wife if, to procure it myself, I would let you run into 
those inconveniences you would do if you followed the 

method you propose of leaving your master So, if 

-you have any regard for your honour and family, leave off 
any such thoughts ; for from that time your master will 
have a pretence to do nothing for you, whereas if ever he 
comes to be in a condition [and with you near him] he 
cannot avoid it. ... . But what would go nearer my 
heart, if it were possible, chameleon-like, to live on air, is 
that it would ruin your reputation; and that all your 
enemies, or rather enviers, who think others pretentions a 
diminution of theirs, might make it their business to say 
that it was not desire of serving your master that made 
you do what you did, but because you could not live at 
home on what you had." 

Writing from Scotland, Lady Traquair argued 
strongly in the same sense as Lady Mthsdale, and the 
earl yielded in some degree to their joint representa- 
tions. It induced him at least to pause and think 
again before the final step was taken. Besides, there 
was now a stronger rumour of the Chevalier's intended 
marriage, which would afford an opening for good 
places in the new and larger household to be formed. 

Meanwhile Lady Nithsdale was enduring some of 
the sharpest privations of poverty. But for a little 
timely aid from the kind-hearted Lady Traquair she 
would have wanted all through the winter both warmth 
and light. Thus she writes in reply : — 

" May God Almighty reward you in this and the next 
world for your goodness to us and ours ! . . . . My nephew 
paid me the sum you ordered, and never thing came more 
providentially, for I had tugged on in summer with much 
ado : but did not know in the world what to do for the 



218 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

addition of wood and candle, which it will enable me to 
get. But I fear I must soon think of repaying it again, 
since I took it up from a gentleman, who took my bill for 
it on the goldsmith you bid me take it from. .... Had 
I not nad so pressing a need of it, I would not have taken 
it, your son having lent your brother 200 livres." 

Another calamity was now close impending on this 
ill-fated lady. On the 7th of May, 1718, died at St. 
Germains her former mistress and her constant friend, 
the Queen Dowager of England. It was a grievous 
blow to the whole melancholy train of exiles. Father 
James Carnegy, a Koman Catholic priest, writes thus 
from Paris : — 

" The desolation amongst the followers of her son, her 
servants, and other poor dependants, amongst whom she 
used to divide all her pension, is inexpressible. It is said 
the regent will assist the most indigent of them ; but 
nothing is yet certain. It is feared, whatever he do to 
others, he dare not help the king's followers." 

Lady Mthsdale herself writes as follows from Paris 
on the 28th of June, and still to Lady Traquair : — 

" My husband is now fully resolved not to leave his 
master ; for when he went to take his leave of him, his 
master was pleased to tell him that he had so few about 
him, that he would not part with him; that he should 
probably be married before winter, and then he desired to 
have me in his family, and so desired him to leave off the 
thoughts of a journey for two or three months, which you 
may be sure he agreed to." 

Full of these hopes, Lord Mthsdale desired that 
the countess should join him in Italy as soon as possible, 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 219 

since as he observes in these matters it is " first come, 
first served." He could send her no funds for the 
journey, but bade her apply to Lord and Lady Tra- 
quair, which Lady Mthsdale, mindful of their many 
obligations, was most unwilling to do. However, in 
the same letter of the 28th of June, she proceeds to 
say :— 

" Though he bid me lose no time in writing to you 
about borrowing money, I would not do it, because, though 
he did not know it, my dear mistress, who was, underhand, 
the occasion of furthering my promotion, and who, though 
it must never be known, was resolved I should be about 
her daughter-in-law, had promised me to give me notice 
when it was fit for me to go, and would have given me 
what was requisite to carry me ; and writ to me four days 
before her illness what she would have me write to her son 
in order to it, which I did the first post, and sent it in- 
closed in a letter to her. But, alas, it arrived the day she 
died, some hours after her death. Imagine you, whether 
her loss is not a great one to me. I may truly say I have 
lost a kind mother, for she was truly that to me whilst I 
had her. I would not write to you, being sensible that 
you have already done a great deal ; so that nothing but 
unavoidable necessity could make me mention any such 
thing. But, alas, I am so far from being able to comply 
with my husband's desire now, that I know not how scarce 
to keep myself from starving, with the small credit I have 
here, being reduced to the greatest of straits." 

The kindness of Lord and Lady Traquair, as shown 
on many former occasions, was not denied her on this. 
A small sum in addition was paid her by order of the 
Chevalier. There was also as it chanced one of her 
sisters then at Paris — Lady Anne Herbert by birth, 



220 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

and married to Francis Smith, Lord Carrington — "a 
person," writes Lady Mthsdale, " that no one would 
have thought should have helped me in this juncture. 
But so far from it that I have not got a sixpence, but 
a promise to keep my little girl who stays with her. 
But I oblige myself to pay what masters she has, with- 
out which she would have lost all the learning I have 
done my endeavours to give her, notwithstanding all 
my strait." 

By the aid of the Traquair subsidy and that from 
her so-called royal "master," Lady Mthsdale was 
enabled to join her husband at Urbino, and, after a 
brief interval, proceed with him in the Chevalier's train 
to Kome. From Eome there soon went forth another 
melancholy letter to Lady Traquair : — 

" January 3, 1719. — Dearest sister, I have still deferred 
writing to you since I came to this place, hoping to have 
some agreeable news to make a letter welcome that had so 
far to go ; but we still are in the same situation, and live 
upon hopes; and, indeed, without hope, hearts would 

break; but I can say no more I found him [my 

lord] still the same man as to spending, not being able to 
conform himself to what he has, which really troubles me. 
And to the end that he might not make me the pretence, 
which he ever did, I do not touch a penny of what he has, 
but leave it to him to maintain him and his man, which is 

all he has, and live upon what is allowed me Now 

as to other things: the great expectations I had some 
reason to have conceived from my husband's letters when 
he sent for me hither, are far from answered. I am kept 
at as great a distance from my master as can well be, and 
as much industry used to let me have none of his ear as 
they can; and though he is going to a house that his 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 221 

family can scarce fill, I could not obtain to be admitted 
nnder bis roof. But tbat and many other things must 
be looked over ; at least we shall have bread by being 
near him, and I have the happiness once again to be with 
my dear husband that I love above my life." 

The real fact, as explaining the cold reception of 
Lord and Lady Mthsdale, appears to .be that the 
Chevalier was at this time greatly under the dominion 
of two unworthy favourites — Colonel the Hon. John 
Hay, a son of Lord Kinnoul, and his wife Marjory, a 
daughter of Lord Stormont. Some years later James 
named John Hay his Secretary of State, with high 
rank in his titular peerage as Earl of Inverness. Both 
the wife and husband are described as follows in Lock- 
hart of Carnwath's " Memoirs " : " The lady was a mere 
coquette, tolerably handsome, but withal prodigiously 
vain and arrogant. Her lord was a cunning, false, 
avaricious creature of very ordinary parts, cultivated 
by no sort of literature, and altogether void of ex- 
perience in business." It was now the object of this 
well-matched pair to confirm and maintain their in- 
fluence by keeping away as much as possible all persons 
who would not declare themselves their followers and 
their dependants. 

Within a few weeks, however, of Lord and Lady 
Nithsdale's arrival at Rome, James himself was sud- 
denly called away from it. He was summoned to 
Spain, there to sanction and direct the expedition 
against Great Britain, which the Prime Minister Car- 
dinal Alberoni had been preparing. It is well known 
how soon and how signally that project was baffled by 



222 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

the winds and tempests, and with how much of disap- 
pointment the Chevalier had to return to Italy. 

In this journey to Spain James appears to have 
been attended by Lord Nithsdale, while the countess 
remained at Rome. There she witnessed the arrival of 
James's bride, the Princess Clementina Sobieski, whom 
she describes (May 17, 1719) as follows : — 

" This, dearest sister, is barely to acquaint you that 
yesterday night arrived here our young mistress. I and 
my companion went out a post to meet her, and, indeed, 
she is one of the charmingest, obliging, and well-bred 
young ladies that ever was seen. Our master cannot but 
be extremely happy in her, and all those who has the 
good fortune to have any dependence on her. To add to 
it, she is very pretty ; has good eyes, a fine skin, well- 
shaped for her height ; but is not tall, but may be so as 
yet, for she is but seventeen, and looks even younger. 
She has chosen a retired place in the town in our master's 
absence." 

It had been hoped by Lord and Lady Mthsdale 
that on the return of James to Italy there would be 
expressed to them some disapproval of the mortifica- 
tions to which they had almost daily been exposed. 
But it did not prove so. Lady Mthsdale writes, 
October 10, 1719 :— 

" The first of August our young mistress went to meet 
her husband, who could not come hither by reason of the 
great heats, in which time it is thought dangerous to come 
into this town ; so she went to a small place six or seven 
posts from hence, a very good air, but so small a place that 
she took but one person with her, which was Mrs. Hay. 
The straitness of the place was the reason given for my 
companion's and my stay behind ; but there is some reason 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 223 

to believe that our master did not care for to have more 
about him than what he has there. He has not permitted 
anybody to go to him but those he sends for, which has 
been but few persons, and such only as those who ad- 
dressed themselves to Mrs. Hay's brother or husband. . . . 
As before mentioned, our master and mistress comes 
hither, and are, probably speaking, to stay this winter, 
though the master of this town [the Pope] does not much 
approve of it. Where we shall go after God knows. His 
company he used to have about him is much diminished ; 
many are gone, and more is a-going daily. My companion 
is a-going to her husband, and I fear neither he nor she 
intend to return ; so that I am the only one now left 
of my station, and shall in all appearance be yet more 
trampled on than were both in our master's absence. At 
his return we hoped for some redress, but now we have 
reason to believe we are to expect none, for everything is 
approved that was done in his absence, which has made 
many one withdraw ; and I wish that may be the greatest 
ill that follows from the retirement of some. My husband 
would fain have been of the number, and have had me, 
but I told him my pleasure did not draw me hither, nor 
the slights and troubles I daily meet should make me go, 
but be overlooked by me for the same end that brought 
me, which was the good of my children and family ; so I 
intend to act as if I saw nothing but what pleased me, 
and expect God Almighty's time for an alteration." 

In this same letter Lady Nithsdale laments to her 
sister-in-law her husband's want of forethought and 
consideration in borrowing, or, as she calls it, " taking 
up " money where he finds it practicable, and, above 
all, in drawing bills on Lord or Lady Traquair without 
their consent and approval first obtained. She grieves 
at this money being 



224 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

" all taken up and spent already, which," she adds, " is 
but too true ; so that if his master does not pay it, as I 
very much fear he will not, his reputation is quite lost. 
.... All my comfort is that I have no share in this 
misfortune, for he has never been the man that has offered 
me one farthing of all the money he has taken up, and as 
yet all is spent, but how, is a riddle to me, for what he 
spends at home is but 30 pence a day in his eating. He 
has had but one suit of clothes since, and now he must 
have one for winter. For my part I continue in mourning 
as yet for want of wherewithal to buy clothes, and I 
brought my mourning with me that has served ever since 
I came, and was neither with my master's or husband's 
money bought. But now I have nobody to address 
myself to but my master for wherewithal to buy any. 

" I know, between you and I, but that I need not tell 
my master, that he [my lord] blames me and his daughter 
for what he is obliged to take up ; whereas I have not had 
one single penny, and as for our daughter, whose masters 
I must pay, or she forget all the little I have been at the 
expense of before, and have done it hitherto, I have 
neither paid out of his nor my own pension, which is too 
small to do it, but that I had 30 pistoles from the Pope 
for her, which had done it. But now they are at an end, 
and I know not what to do. For as to my sister I suppose 
she will not see her starve or go naked, but for more I 
cannot rely on." 

Thus wearily and heavily the months dragged along 
at Home. In March, 1720, however, there came a gleam 
of joy when Lady Nithsclale found herself able to 
announce that the princess gave hopes of an heir. 
Even this brief gleam was clouded over by signal mor- 
tifications. James would allow at this juncture no 
intimate access of any lady to his consort, except only 
Mrs. Hay— 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 225 

" who is one as you know," Lady Nitksdale writes, " that 
has never had any children ; . . . and though I have had 
occasion to be better versed in these things, having been 
so long married and had so many children, yet they pre- 
fer one who has had no experience of that kind, and my 
mistress has not so much as ever let me know how she 
was in any kind. And when she was indisposed, which 
she has been frequently since her being with child was 
spoken of, and that I was there constantly three times a 
day to see how she did, I never was thought fit to be ad- 
mitted into the secret, but it was told me by herself and 
others that it was nothing but a cold, though I knew in 
what condition she was." 

In spite of these unpromising signs, Lady Nithsdale 
ventured at this juncture, " humbly begging," to know 
whether she " might have any hopes of having care of 
the young lord or lady when it pleased God to send it." 
She was not precisely refused — that is, there was no 
other person preferred. But the chevalier answered 
that, " having taken a resolution to take no servants 
while I am abroad, I will make neither governess nor 
uncler-governess. My wife has but little to do, and 
will look to it herself." 

Great was the delight of the whole mournful com- 
pany of exiles when, on the last day of the year, the 
princess gave birth to a son, Charles Edward, the hero 
of " The Forty-five." Henceforth the letters of Lady 
Nithsdale teem with accounts of his teething and 
weaning, and other incidents of childhood. Scarcely 
less were they rejoiced when, four years afterwards, 
there came a second son, Henry, afterwards Cardinal 
York. 

Q 



226 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

But during this time the circumstances of the 
Mthsdales by no means improved. They were con- 
stantly reduced to dismal straits. Thus, on the occasion 
of Prince Charles's birth, when some gala dresses were 
required, Lady Mthsdale writes : — 

" I have had the happiness to have one handsome suit 
procured me by means of a Cardinal, who got it from the 
Pope, but that is between you and I, for I was forbid to 
let it be known. I have bought two others, the one as 
good as that, the other more for bad weather, being obliged 
to walk on foot to my master's several times in the day, 
so that I am much out of pocket, but shall in time get 
free, I hope, without taking a farthing from my husband 
for it. The reason why I thought myself obliged to pro- 
vide myself so well, was that my master might not think 
that because I was disappointed of what I had some reason 
to expect I did not care how I went ; and also that if I 
had not he might have taken the pretence that he was 
ashamed I should be seen with his wife because I had not 
decent clothes." 

Still more grievous was it, for Lady Mthsdale at ; 
least, when dire necessity compelled them to draw 
bills on Lord Traquair, and trust to his generosity 
for their acceptance. In 1722 there went out a bill 
of a larger amount than usual, namely 1501., and for 
this Lord Mthsdale desired that his sister should sell 
a little household furniture which his wife had left 
in her care, and apply the proceeds in its discharge. 

" But," as Lady Nithsdale writes, " it will not answer' 
our end if the money be not paid twenty days after the 
receipt of the bill ; so I beg you by all that is dear to you i 
to have compassion of us; for if this fails, if we were 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 227 

a-starving nobody would let us have a sixpence. We have 
pawned all our credit to hinder our being molested till 
this can be answered, and have had no small difficulty in 
getting it done, and are quite out of the power of doing 
it longer." 

Lord Nithsdale, on his part, adds, in another letter, 
'•' this, if not answered, will infallibly ruin me." 

Neither in this instance, nor in any other, so far 
as we are made aware of it, did Lord Traquair fail in 
the expected aid. But it must be owned that Lord 
Nithsdale made him a strange return. This was in 
1723. Either to enhance his own importance, or for 
some other object, he intimated to the Chevalier that 
some property, belonging of right to himself, was un- 
fairly detained by his brother-in-law. Hereupon 
James, desiring to do an act of justice at the same 
time with an act of kindness, wrote as follows to one of 
bris agents in Scotland : — 

" The Earl of Nidsdale tells me he has private means 
)f his own in the Earl of Traquair's hands, from whom he 
las never yet got any account of them ; and as you know 
:he just regard I have, particularly for the first, I would 
lave you get Mr. Carnegy to take a proper method of 
etting Traquair know that I should take it kindly if he 
would settle these affairs with his kinsman here to his 
satisfaction, which I am persuaded he will do when he 
mows it will be agreeable to me." 

Even the most placable of men must here have 
3een roused to resentment. Here, in complete reversal 
)f the real facts, was Lord Traquair, a steady adherent 
)f the exiled prince, held up to that prince, whose 



228 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

good opinion lie was of course anxious to secure, as 
the spoiler of that kinsman whom he had so con- 
stantly befriended. No wonder if we find Lady 
Traquair writing to her brother as follows (January, 
1724) :— 

" It is but within these few days that my husband was 
in a condition that he could know the contents of your 
letter, or what Sir John [the king] writ of your affairs. 
I do not pretend to write to you what his sentiments were 
upon knowing this most unexpected and unaccountable 
piece of news. He was not a little grieved that matters 
had been so misrepresented as if he had effects of yours in 
his hands, and were so unjust to so near a relation as not to 
transmit your own to you, though you be straitened and 
suffer in such a cause. This is indeed, dear brother, a very 
strange office from you to my husband, after so many 
services done by him to you and your family. I must say 
it is very unkind and a sad return for all the favours my 
husband has done you before and since you went last 
abroad ; for he having no effects of yours save a little 
household furniture of no use to us and what I could not 
get disposed of, has honoured your bills, supplied your I 
wants without scrape of pen from you ; besides the con- - 
siderable sum you owed him formerly, he even under God I 
has preserved your family which without his money credit, 
and his son's assiduous attendance and application, must, 
humanly speaking, have sunk. He might reasonably have; 
expected other returns from you than complaints to one we: 
value so infinitely as we do Sir John, as if my husband 
had wronged you and detained your own when youn 
sufferings justly call for the greatest consideration." 

This affair, however little to the credit of Lord 
Nithsdale, produced no breach between the sisters 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 229 

'I having been always kept ignorant of his affairs," 
vrites Lady Nithsdale, in a previous letter (March 
12, 1723). And subsequently (March 7, 1725), ad- 
verting to this very incident, she says to Lady 
rraquair : — 

"As to what you imagined to be the reason of my not 
writing you wronged me very much in the matter, for 
5vhat happens between your brother and you yourselves 
ire best able to judge. I am only sorry that he should do 
my thing that gives you reason to take ill, and if it lay in 
my power I am sure he would not. As for my part I am 
30 sensible of all your kindnesses and favours to my son 
and family, that I never think I can sufficiently acknow- 
ledge them, or return you my grateful thanks." 

But although there might be no absolute breach 
of friendship, there was certainly a decline of corre- 
spondence. From this period the letters, as we find 
them, of Lady Mthsdale to her sister-in-law are few 
and far between. The latest of all, after six years' 
interval, bears date January 29, 17o9, and in this she 
excuses herself that " my great troubles, and illnesses 
occasioned by them, has hindered me from writing 
hitherto." 

In this period of years, however, there had been 
several events to cheer her. Lord Maxwell, her sole 
surviving son, after much litigation in the Court of 
Session and the House of Lords, was admitted by the 
latter tribunal to the benefit of an early entail which 
Lord Xithsdale had made, so that at his father's death 
he would, notwithstanding his father's forfeiture, 
succeed to Terregles and the family estates. Practi- 



230 THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 

cally lie succeeded to them — in part, at least — even 
sooner, since the life-interest of his father was pur- 
chased from the Government in his behalf. 

Pass we to the daughter, Lady Anne, who had 
come to join her parents in Italy. There she chanced 
to meet Lord Bellew, an Irish nobleman upon his 
travels. He conceived for her a strong attachment, 
apparently on but slight acquaintance. As he writes 
himself to Lord Nithsdale (April 27, 1731) :— 

" I propose to be entirely happy in the possession of 
the lady, who has so fine a character with all those that 
know her. But it is not only hearsay on which I ground 
my happiness, having had the honour and pleasure to see 
Lady Anne, though, perchance, not the good fortune to be 
remembered by her." 

The offer of his hand, which this letter conveyed, 
was by the young lady accepted, and the marriage 
took place at Lucca in the course of the same year. 

Another marriage, at nearly the same period, must 
have been still more interesting to Lord and Lady 
Nithsdale. Lord Maxwell, now a resident in Scotland, 
had become attached to his cousin Lady Catherine 
Stuart, daughter of Lord and Lady Traquair. Con- 
sidering the old connection, and the constant friend- 
ship between the two families, and their agreement 
both in religion and in politics, to say nothing of the 
benefits conferred by the one earl upon the other, 
it might have been supposed that the prospect of this I 
alliance would have given Lord Nithsdale especial 
pleasure. But such was by no means the case. We 
may perceive the contrary from the following sentence 



THE COUNTESS OF NITHSDALE. 231 

of Lady Mthsdale, writing to Lady Traquair (October 
2, 1731) : " Dear sister, I have this considerable while 
been expecting every post the good news of the con- 
clusion of my son's happy marriage with Lady 
Catherine ; a happiness he has long coveted, and I 
as long been endeavouring to procure him his father's 
consent to." The marriage, however, did take place 
in the course of the same year. It appears to have 
been a happy one, as Lady Mthsdale, by anticipation, 
called it. No sons were born from it, and only one 
daughter, through whom the line of Maxwell was 
continued. 

Lord Mthsdale did not live to witness the last 
enterprise on behalf of the exiled Stuarts. He died 
at Kome in March, 1744. After his decease his widow 
was induced, though not without difficulty, to accept 
an annuity of 20 01. from her son, who then came into 
full possession of the family estates. Of this annuity 
she resolved to apply one-half to the discharge of her 
husband's debts, which would in that manner be paid 
off at the end of three years. 

Lady Mthsdale herself survived till the spring of 
1749. Nothing further is known of her declining 
years. We conjecture, however, that she had grown 
very infirm, since her signature, of which some speci- 
mens are given at this period, is tremulous and 
indistinct to a most uncommon degree. 

Both Lord and Lady Mthsdale died at Kome, and, 
in all probability, were buried there. When the late 
Mr. Marmaduke Maxwell, of Terregles, came to that 
city in the year 1870 — so the editor of these volumes 



232 THE COUNTESS OP NITHSDALE. 

informs us — lie made inquiries for any monument or 
grave of these two ancestors ; but, after much research, 
was unable to find the least trace of any such. 

Here then ends our narrative of the life of Winifred 
Herbert, as she was by birth, the worthy descendant 
of that first Earl of Pembroke of the last creation, 
the chief of the English forces at the battle of St. 
Quentin and the Lord President of Wales. In her 
was nobly sustained the spirit of that ancient race. 
Nor in our own century has that spirit declined. 
When we look to what they have done, or may pro- 
bably yet do, in the present age — to the past of 
Sidney Herbert — to the future of Lord Carnarvon — ■ 
to the future also perhaps of that son of Sidney 
Herbert, who, young as he is, has already wielded his 
pen with considerable power, though not always quite 
discreetly, and who has been so recently named Under- 
Secretary of State in that very War Department where 
his father gained and deserved such high distinction 
— we cannot but feel how much of sap and growth is 
left in the ancestral stem, and how aptly it might 
take for its motto revirescit. 



VII. 
THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 



Thebes in Egypt — who has not heard of its wonders ? 
Who has not longed to behold them? That city of 
the hundred gates, as Homer calls it, has indeed long 
since passed away ; but even now some of its massy 
monuments and vast sepulchral chambers bear witness 
to its ancient grandeur. Above all, those twin statues 
of colossal size — "the Pair," for so our countrymen 
have named them — continue to look down on the valley 
of the Nile, and more than any other monuments 
arrest the stranger's eye. " There they sat " — so writes 
Miss Harriet Martineau, describing her first sight of 
them — " together yet apart, in the midst of the plain, 
serene and vigilant, still keeping their untired watch 
over the lapse of ages and the eclipse of Egypt. I can 
never believe that anything else so majestic as this 
Pair has been conceived of by the imagination of Art. 



* 1. I? Empire Bomain en Orient. Par Gaston Bossier. Publie 
dans la Revue des Deux Mondes, Juillet, 1874. 

2. La Statue Vocale de Memnon, considered dans ses rapports avec 
VEgypte et la Grece. Par Jean Antoine Letronne. Paris, 1833. 



236 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

Nothing even in nature certainly ever affected me so 
unspeakably; no thunderstorm in my childhood, nor 
any aspect of Niagara, or the great lakes of America, 
or the Alps or the Desert, in my later years." 

Such were Miss Martineau's words of wonder derived 
only from a transient glance in her up-stream voyage. 
But on her return, when she passed many clays at 
Thebes, she found her first admiration very far from 
enfeebled, and she has expressed it with her 1 wonted 
vividness of style : " The Pair sitting alone amidst the 
expanse of verdure, with islands of ruin behind them, 
grew more striking to us every day. To-day, for the 
first time, we looked up at them from their base. The 
impression of sublime tranquillity which they convey, 
when seen from distant points, is confirmed by a nearer 
approach. There they sit, keeping watch — hands on 
knees, gazing straight forward, seeming, though so 
much of the faces is gone, to be looking over to the 
monumental piles on the other side of the river, which 
became gorgeous temples after these throne-seats were 
placed here — the most immovable thrones that have 
ever been established on this earth ! " 

These gigantic statues, as Sir Gardner Wilkinson 
has measured or computed, are forty-seven feet in 
height ; that is, above the present soil, for they extend 
to seven feet more below it. They appear like islands 
during the yearly inundations of the Nile which cover 
the plain around them. Each was at first of a single 
block, although the one to which we shall presently 
and more in detail advert has been repaired in five 
blocks, from the middle upwards. Those five blocks 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 237 

came from a neighbouring quarry ; but each original 
monolith was of a stone not known within several days' 
journey of the place, so that the means adopted for 
their transport are not easy to imagine or explain. 
What countless multitudes must have been required to 
move these stupendous masses ! 

Our readers, we are sure, need not be reminded how 
since the commencement of the present century the 
patient industry of some eminent men has poured a 
flood of light upon Ancient Egypt. Not only have its 
pyramids and sepulchral chambers been explored, but 
its hieroglyphics deciphered and its inscriptions read. 
By these means — that is, by the tablets at the back of 
the Colossi — we learn that both represent King Amu- 
noph the Third, who began his reign about 1400 years 
before the Christian Era. They were designed as the 
entrance to an avenue leading to the temple-palace of 
Amunoph, about 1100 feet farther inland. This palace- 
temple, once so richly adorned with its sculpture, 
sphinxes, and columns, is now a mere heap of sand- 
stone — "a little roughness in the plain," says Miss 
Martineau, " when seen from the heights behind." 

Many centuries later, when Greeks began to settle 
in Egypt, they found that the easternmost statue of the 
Pair had been shattered down to the waist. According 
to one report, this mutilation was due to the capricious 
fury of Cambyses, as conqueror of Egypt. We regard 
it, however, as highly improbable that if Cambyses 
had been swayed by such an impulse, he would have 
been satisfied with the demolition, and that only partial, 
of only one of the statues. It is far more likely that, 



238 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

as Strabo, the geographer, was assured, an earthquake 
was the cause of the disaster. To the half-statue, which 
then remained, the Greeks gave the name of Memnon. 
They believed it — notwithstanding the strong asseve- 
rations of the natives, who rightly alleged Amunoph 
— to represent the fabled son of Tithonus and Aurora, 
the valiant prince extolled by Homer, who brought 
a host of Ethiopians to the aid of Priam. 

But ere long a rumour rose that this was no, ordinary 
statue. As ear-witnesses affirmed, it would sometimes, 
in the first hour after sunrise, send forth a musical 
voice. The sound, they said, was like that when a 
harp-string breaks. " What more natural," exclaimed 
the Greeks, " than that the son of Aurora should hail 
in tuneful tones the advent of his mother ! " Even 
those philosophers who might not admit the argument 
could not deny the fact. Men and women of rank 
came from distant lands " to hear Memnon," as was 
then the phrase ; and we find the Yocal Statue cele- 
brated all through the classic times. Thus when 
Juvenal, in his fifteenth Satire, is describing Egypt, 
he speaks of it as the country — 

" Diniidio magicse resonant ubi Memnone chordae." 

Not all, nor nearly all, who came "to hear Memnon " 
succeeded in their object. On many mornings the 
Statue remained obstinately dumb. When, on the 
contrary, the expected Yoice came forth at daybreak, 
the foreign visitors frequently desired to engrave on 
the Statue itself a record of their gratification. Thus 
at the present day we find the whole lower part of the 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 239 

Statue covered with inscriptions from the classic times, 
in Greek or in Latin, in prose or in verse. 

It is very strange that this huge mass, so con- 
spicuous an object from the river, should have been 
unknown a century or more ago, and been subsequently, 
as it were, re-discovered. We have now before us a 
quarto volume, published at Paris in 1733, and at 
present become very rare, a " Description de 1'Egypte," 
by M. de Maillet, formerly French Consul at Cairo. In 
this book an account of the Statue, with its name of 
Memnon, is given from the ancient writers, and M. de 
Maillet adds : " Quoiqu'il en soit, il ne reste plus de 
traces aujourd'hui de ce colosse." 

In our own time the writers who have treated of 
this subject have mostly been disposed to connect the 
" magical chords of Memnon," as Juvenal calls them, 
with some artifice of the priests. They "no doubt 
contrived the sound of the Statue " — so says, for 
example, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in his " Handbook of 
Egypt." For our part we are not at all concerned 
about the character of the hierophants at Thebes, or 
bound in any manner to defend them : — 

" Oh, worthy thou of Egypt's blest abodes, 
A decent priest where monkeys were the gods ! " 

But our regard for historical truth obliges us to say 
that, as we believe, there was no priestcraft whatever in 
this case. The priests heard the Voice, as did the 
visitors, but were as ignorant of its real cause. They 
did no more than share the common error, although no 
doubt they benefited by it. 



240 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

We are glad to find that the opinion which we 
have now expressed entirely accords with that of a 
most competent judge on any subject connected with 
classic times, M. Gaston Boissier. He has touched 
upon this question incidentally, while discussing the 
inscriptions on the Statue, in an Essay on the Koman 
Monuments in the East, which appeared in the Bevue 
des Deux Mondes of July last year. But for full 
details we would refer to the earlier and more special 
treatise of M. Letronne ; a rare book, however, of which 
there were only two hundred copies printed ; and even 
of these no more than one hundred were on sale. It is 
mainly by the aid, then, of these two able archaeolo- 
gists — Boissier and Letronne— that we hope to render 
the whole case clear and convincing to our readers. 

And first, as to the shattering of the Statue. Ad- 
mitting an earthquake to have been the cause, there 
still remains the question by which, or at what period, 
these huge fragments were hurled down. M. Letronne 
has produced a passage from the " Chronicle of Euse- 
bius," as translated by St. Jerome. It refers to the 
year 27 before Christ, when, as it states, the edifices of 
Thebes were levelled to the ground. " Thebae Egypti 
usque ad solum dirutae." Judging even from what 
now remains, it is clear that this is a great exaggera- 
tion. Yet still the fact remains beyond dispute, that 
in the year alleged there was a violent convulsion of 
nature, which wrought great havoc at Thebes. Now, 
earthquakes are, or were, extremely rare in the valley 
of the Nile. This has been noticed by Pliny, who, in 
one sentence, has rather strangely lumped together 



THE STATUE OF MEMNOK 241 

Gaul and Egypt. " Gallia et JEgyptus minime quati- 
untur." If then any person be inclined to doubt that 
the partial destruction of the Statue took place in 
the year 27 before Christ, he will find it very diffi- 
cult to name any other earthquake to which within 
the necessary limits of time that partial destruction 
can be ascribed. 

But farther, this date accurately tallies with the 
other circumstances of the case. The visit of Strabo 
to Egypt was made between the years 18 and 7 of the 
Christian Era, that is ten or twenty years after the 
earthquake which Eusebius has recorded. At Thebes 
he found the natives full of traditional resentment at 
the long past Persian conquest. They appear to have 
pointed out, or enumerated to him, various of their 
monuments as mutilated by Cambyses. But they 
always excepted the colossal Statue, which, as was said 
among them, had been rent asunder by a convulsion of 
the earth. That convulsion was then too recent for 
them to entertain or express any doubt upon the sub- 
ject. But in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, a 
hundred and fifty years later, the memory of the 
earthquake appears to have faded away, and the 
Colossus was then included in the list of monuments 
which Cambyses had attempted to destroy. Several 
of the inscriptions dating from that reign, and still to 
be traced along the base of the Statue, allude to this 
as to a certain fact. 

It is to be borne in mind, that until the Statue was 
shattered to its waist there was no thought or question 
of its musical sound at sunrise. It was only since then 

R 



242 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

that the " Voice of Memnon " was heard, or that by 
degrees the rumour of it spread abroad. Miss Martineau 
is therefore quite in error when, after mentioning how 
the easternmost statue was shattered by Cambyses, she 
adds, " after which, however, it still gave out its gentle 
music to the morning sun." It was not in spite of, but 
in consequence of, the mutilation that the musical 
sound was heard. 

On the rumours, as they gradually went forth of 
this wonderful Voice, travellers, some of princely rank, 
were attracted to the spot, and bore witness to the 
miracle. Thus, when in the year 19 of the Christian 
Era Germanicus appeared in Egypt, and sailed up the 
Nile, we are informed by Tacitus that he visited the 
Vocal Statue. But, as we have already noted, Memnon 
was by no means constant or discriminating in his 
favours. On some mornings the pilgrims were grati- 
fied with the expected Voice, on others they went 
disappointed away. 

Erom this variation there ensued, ere long, the 
common idea that to hear Memnon was a high privi- 
lege — a special favour of the Gods. The inscriptions 
at the base of the Statue, beginning, so far as their 
dates can be traced, in the reign of Nero, are forward 
to commemorate the fact. 

Here follow some of these inscriptions as translated, 
the originals being partly in Latin and partly in very 
indifferent Greek. 



"I, Funisulana Vetulla, wife of Cams Lselius Afri- 
canus, Prsefect of Egypt, heard Memnon an hour and a 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 243 

half before sunrise on the Ides of February, in the first 
year of the august Emperor Donritian." 

This date corresponds to the year 82 of the Christian 
Era. 

"In the seventeenth year of the Emperor Domitian, 
Csesar Augustus, Germanieus, I, Titus Petronius Secundus, 
Prefect, heard Memnon at the first hour in the Ides of 
March, and gave him honour in the Greek verses inscribed 
below." 

Here then follow the verses, which seem of but 
moderate merit ; although M. Letronne, considering 
the authorship, is disposed to view them with indul- 
gence : "Fort passables" he says, "pour etre Vouvrage 
d r un Prefet." 

" After the first hour, and when in the course of the 
second the genial day (alma dies) irradiates the ocean, the 
Memnonian Yoice was happily heard by me three times. 

"Viaticus Theramenes made (this inscription) when 
he heard Memnon in the Calends of June, Servianus being 
for the third time Consul. With him was his wife 
Asidonia Calpe." 

The third Consulship of Servianus answers to the 
year of our Lord 134. 



(Greek Verses) by Ccecilia Trebulla. 

"Hearing the sacred voice of Memnon, I longed for 
thee, my mother, and desired that thou also mightest 
hear it." 



(In Greek Verse?) 
" Thy mother, renowned Memnon, the Goddess, the 
rosy-fingered Aurora, has rendered thee vocal for me who 



244 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

desired to hear thee. In the twelfth year of the illus- 
trious Antoninus, and in the month of Pachon, counting 
thirteen days, twice, Divine Being, did I hear thy Voice 
as the sun was leaving the majestic waves of Ocean. 

" Once the son of Saturn, great Jove, had made thee 
monarch of the East ; now thou art but a stone ; and it is 
from a stone that thy Voice proceeds." 

" Gemellus wrote these verses in his turn, having come 
hither with his dear wife Eufilla and his children." 

The 12th year of the reign of Antoninus answers 
to 150 of our Era. 

But by far the most interesting visit ever paid to 
Memnon was from the Emperor Hadrian, in the year of 
Christ 140. That Emperor, whose intelligent curiosity 
led him to view in their turn almost every place of 
note in his dominions, appears to have passed many 
days, perhaps even a whole month, at Thebes. With 
him came his Empress Sabina ; and in their train was 
a blue-stocking matron, Julia Balbilla by name. This 
lady desiring to do honour to her patron, inscribed at 
the base of the statue several pieces of pedantic verse 
composed by herself. In one of them she triumphantly 
relates that the Emperor heard Memnon no less than 
three times — "a clear proof," adds Balbilla, "that the 
Gods love Hadrian." 

Sabina was not quite so fortunate. She was greatly I 
displeased that when she first appeared before him 
Memnon remained mute. Her displeasure is still I 
attested by an inscription in Greek verse, composed, 
it would seem, by one of her attendants, perhaps by 
the same blue-stocking matron who wrote the rest. 






THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 245 

" Having failed to hear Meinnon yesterday, we prayed 
to him not to be again unfavourable to us, nor withhold 
his Divine Sound; for the venerable features of the 
Empress were inflamed with anger. The Emperor him- 
self might be irritated, and a lasting sadness might invade 
his venerable consort. Memnon accordingly, dreading the 
wrath of these immortal princes, has of a sudden sent 
forth his melodious voice, thus showing that he takes 
pleasure in the companionship of Gods." 

The accounts of the Memnon Statue and of its 
Voice at sunrise, as transmitted to us by divers Pas;an 
writers since the beginning of the Christian Era, are 
clear, distinct, and consistent with each other. There 
is, however, a remarkable exception in that historical 
romance, " The Life of Apollonius of Tyana," by Phi- 
lostratus. Dr. Jowett, in the article on Apollonius 
which he contributed to one of Dr. Smith's Classical 
Dictionaries, describes that book as a " mass of in- 
congruities and fables ; " nor shall we find any reason 
to modify that general judgment by the particular 
instance which is now before us. 

Philostratus then, writing in the reign of Alexan- 
der Severus, that is between the years 222 and 235 of 
our Era, describes the wanderings and the miracles of 
Apollonius in the first century since the birth of Christ. 
He makes his hero visit the Memnon, which he repre- 
sents as not mutilated but entire. The head, he says, 
is of a beardless young man ; his arms rest upon his 
throne, his figure leans forward as though in act to 
rise, his mouth and eyes betoken a man in the act to 
speak, and when the Voice does issue his eyes shine 



246 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

forth with especial brilliancy, like those of a man on 
whom the sunlight falls. 

But what a fancy fabric is here ! All the other 
effigies of Amunoph the Third represent him as 
bearded: it seems therefore all but certain that this 
Colossus when entire was bearded also. As to the 
figure bending forward as though ready to rise, M. 
Letronne assures us that no such attitude is to be 
found in any other Egyptian statue. The eyes that 
betoken an intention of speaking, and that beanr with 
preternatural light whenever the Voice is heard, are 
plainly the work of the imagination, and of the 
imagination only. 

But further still, it is expressly stated by Philo- 
stratus, though M. Letronne was the first to notice it, 
as bearing on this question, that Philostratus does not 
profess to give this description on his own authority, 
but quotes the words of Damis, who was a writer in 
Assyria a century and a half before. The account 
which Philostratus, still following Damis, proceeds to 
give of the first cataract, may vie for its inaccuracy 
with his account of the Memnon. Here he says the 
Nile is flowing along mountains, like to those of 
Tmolus, in Lydia, from which its waters dash down 
with so prodigious a noise, that many persons who 
approached them nearly, have lost in consequence all 
power of hearing. May we not, then, upon the whole 
adopt the judgment of M. Chassang, the last translator 
of the " Life of Apollonius ? " " Tout porte a croire 
que cette description de la Statue de Memnon n'est 
qu'une amplification de rhetorique." 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 247 

If, as the Ancients did, we were to regard the Voice 
of Memnon as a miracle — as the manifestation of a 
Godhead to man — we must own that not many miracles 
could be better attested. We should have in its sup- 
port an unbroken chain of testimonies, derived from 
the most various sources, and extending over scores of 
years. But in this case the light of modern science 
has supplied a natural and simple explanation. " On 
sait que cette decouverte elt due a notre illustre 
Letronne," — such are the words of M. Gaston Boissier. 
But in spite of this positive on sait, we will venture to 
assert that no such thing is known, for no such thing- 
is true. Even for ourselves, the writers in this Keview, 
we may claim precedence in the explanation over 
M. Letronne. And this the following dates will clearly 
show. 

The volume of M. Letronne on this subject ap- 
peared in 1833. We of the Quarterly, on the other 
hand, in our 88th number, published in February, 
1831, were reviewing Herschel's " Treatise on Sound." 
Nor will it be any breach of confidence, after so long 
an interval, to state that this article was contributed 
by one of the foremost men of science in his day — by 
Mr., since Sir David, Brewster. 

In his article, then, upon Herschel, Sir David took 
occasion to advert, though not at length, to the case of 
the Statue of Memnon. Here are the words he used : 
" We have no hesitation in avowing our belief that the 
sound or sounds which it [the Statue of Memnon] dis- 
charged were the offspring of a natural cause." In 
common with some travellers, whom we alleged, we 



248 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

" ascribed these sounds to the transmission of rarefied 
air through the crevices of a sonorous stone." And 
he adds : " The phenomenon proceeded without doubt 
from the sudden change of temperature which takes 
place at the rising of the sun." 

It is plain, we may now subjoin, that in such a case 
the phenomenon could not be uniform or constant, but 
would depend on the varying conditions of tempera- 
ture or season. 

In the same article we proceeded to point out that 
this is no solitary instance. There are several other 
well-attested cases of musical sounds which issue at 
sunrise from the like crevices, and which are explained 
by the same cause. Above all, we quoted the observa- 
tions of the celebrated traveller, Baron Humboldt, 
when wandering on the banks of the Oronooko : "The 
granite rock," he says, " on which we lay is one of 
those where travellers on the Oronooko have heard 
from time to time towards sunrise subterranean sounds 
resembling those of the organ. The missionaries call 
these stones loxas de musica. 'It is witchcraft,' said 
our young Indian pilot. . . . But the existence of a 
phenomenon that seems to depend on a certain state of 
the atmosphere cannot be denied. The shelves of rock 
are full of very narrow and deep crevices. They are 
heated during the day to about 50°. I often found 
their temperature at the surface during the night at 
39°. It may easily be conceived that the difference of 
temperature between the subterraneous and the ex- 
ternal air would attain its maximum about sunrise, or 
at that moment which is at the same time farthest 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 249 

from the period of the maximum of the heat of the 
preceding day." 

Nor did the acute mind of Humboldt fail to notice, 
even though very vaguely, the close connection between 
this case and that of the Theban Colossus. For he 
goes on to ask : " May we not admit that the ancient 
inhabitants of Egypt, in passing incessantly up and 
down the Nile, had made the same observation on some 
rock of the Thebaid, and that the music of the rocks 
there led to the jugglery of the priests in the Statue 
of Memnon ? " 

In the same article we also called attention to the 
analogous phenomena among the sandstone rocks of 
El Nakous, in Arabia Petrsea. But without quitting 
the soil of Egypt, or even the neighbourhood of Thebes, 
a striking parallel can be adduced. We called as 
witnesses three French artists, Messrs. Jomarcl, Jollois, 
and Devilliers, who state that, being in a monument of 
granite placed in the centre of the spot on which the 
palace of Karnak stood, they heard a noise which 
resembled that of a chord breaking — the very com- 
parison employed by Pausanias — issue from the blocks 
at sunrise. And they were of opinion that these sounds 
" might," in their own words, " have suggested to the 
Egyptian priests to invent the juggleries of the Mem- 
nonium." The fact indeed may be taken as now 
accepted and admitted by men of science. It is no 
longer, we think, doubted in any quarter that the 
action of the morning sun on the chilled air in the 
crevices of rock may and does produce the same effect 
as was observed in the Statue of Memnon. 



250 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

We would observe that, although in this explana- 
tion we claim priority of M. Letronne, we most cheer- 
fully accord it to Baron Humboldt and to the other 
explorers, whose remarks we have transcribed. Still 
earlier precedence is due to M. Dussaulx, the French 
translator of Juvenal, who was the first, we rather think, 
to suggest the true theory of the magicm chordae in his 
author. 

It is also to be noted that M. Letronne himself never 
made that claim of priority which his countryman has 
thought fit to make in his behalf. On the contrary, 
he expressly quoted in his margin our article of 
February, 1831, and derived from it the remarkable 
account by Baron Humboldt of the Oronooko sound. 
His industry has also collected some further parallel 
cases — one, for instance, near the Maladetta mountain 
in the Pyrenees — and devoting a whole volume, instead 
of a mere digression in a quarterly article, to this 
subject, he has treated it in a most complete and 
convincing manner, with which our own cursory 
remarks could never pretend to vie. 

Admitting then, as no one seems at present to deny, 
that the phenomenon of the Theban Colossus was 
produced by the vibration of the air, the question 
would still remain whether, as some persons persis- 
tently assert, " the jugglery of the priests," as they term 
it, was at all concerned. As we have already stated, 
we are convinced that it was not. Let it, in the first 
place, be considered that there is no hiding-place or 
secret chamber in or near the Statue; and that without 
the aid of these, it seems impossible that the Voice of 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 251 

Menmon could be either promoted or restrained. 
Secondly, had the priests really possessed any such 
power of promoting the miraculous Voice, they would 
certainly have used it in behalf of the great and 
powerful — of those whose favour they desired to gain. 
How then could we explain the fact that the wife of a 
Prsefect of Egypt was allowed to make two visits with- 
out hearing the desired sound ; that in like manner the 
consort of an Emperor came for the first time in vain, 
to her great displeasure and at the risk of her resent- 
ment ; while a common soldier has put on record that 
he enjoyed the privilege no less than thirteen times ? 

The latest inscription that bears a date upon the 
Statue is by Marcus Ulpius Primianus, Prsefect of 
Egypt, in the second Consulship of Septimius Severus, 
and in the year of our Lord 194 ; and the restoration of 
the Statue was, in all probability, made a few years 
afterwards. In its mutilated state, the lower half from 
which the Voice proceeded was part of the original 
monolith ; when restored, or rather rebuilt, that lower 
half bore, as it still bears upon it, five ranges of enor- 
mous blocks of stone. The magnitude and cost of this 
construction must be held to indicate an Emperor's 
work, and the result of an Emperor's visit. Now, since 
the time of Hadrian, no Emperor, except Septimius 
Severus, ever came to Upper Egypt. His biographer, 
Spartianus, records of him that " he carefully examined 
Memphis, the Pyramids, the Labyrinth, and Memnon." 

Such being the fact, it cannot but be thought 
surprising that while there are so many inscriptions 
on the base of the Colossus to commemorate the visit 



252 THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 

of Hadrian, not a single one appears to commemorate 
the visit of Severus. As is argued by M. Letronne, 
there is only one explanation that can be assigned as 
satisfactory or sufficient to account for the omission 
— namely, to presume that when Severus came to the 
Statue it remained obstinately dumb. These inscrip- 
tions, it should be remembered, were never put up 
when there was a failure in the sound, unless in the 
case when the first failures were followed by success. 

It may also be inferred, with considerable pro- 
bability, that the silence of the Statue in the august 
presence was the cause of its reconstruction. Severus 
was a sincere and zealous Pagan ; and he lived in an 
age when the adherents of the old Mythology, alarmed 
at the progress of the Christians, strove hard to regain 
the public confidence and favour. It was during his 
reign that the main attempt was made to hold forth 
Apollonius of Tyana as a worker of wonders and 
religious teacher, in opposition to our Lord. In like 
manner the Voice of Memnon, as a Pagan prodigy, was 
esteemed a counterpoise to the Christian miracles. 
The priests and devotees, as M. Boissier puts it, would 
assure Severus that since Memnon even in his muti- 
lated state gave his greeting often, though not quite 
so often as he ought, his Voice would certainly become 
both more distinct and more unfailing if once his 
Statue were restored. This is no mere vague conjec- 
ture of the popular belief. Several of the inscriptions 
on the base express or imply the idea that Memnon, 
when entire, could speak in language, but since his 
mutilation, was reduced to inarticulate sounds. 



THE STATUE OF MEMNON. 253 

But there is yet another point of view from which 
the Emperor might be urged. The silence of the 
Statue denoted the displeasure of the Gods. Did it 
not, then, become a devout worshipper, such as was 
Severus, to take some step for removing that dis- 
pleasure ? Should he not appease the offended deity 
by a splendid reconstruction of his Statue? 

Yielding, perhaps — for there is no positive state- 
ment on the subject — to some such representations, the 
Emperor gave orders for the costly work required. 
But alas for the result ! In his new construction he, 
of course, filled up the ancient crevices, and in conse- 
quence silenced Memnon for ever. Aurora continued 
to rise as usual, but received no further greetings from 
her son. 

We have thus endeavoured to trace the varied 
fortunes, the rise and the fall, of this celebrated 
prodigy. Well pleased shall we be if any future 
traveller, as in his Nile boat he nears that majestic 
monument, shall feel that he owes to our pages a 
more accurate knowledge of its history, and a warmer 
interest in its survey. 



LONDON : FEINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET 
AND CHARING CROSS. 



50a, Albemarle Street, London, 
January, 1876. 



ME, MURRAY'S 
GENERAL LIST OF WORKS. 



ALBERT (The) MEMORIAL. A Descriptive and Illustrated 

Account of the National Monument erected to the PRINCE CONSORT 
at Kensington. Illustrated by Engravings of its Architecture, Decora- 
tions, Sculptured Groups, Statues, Mosaics, Metalwork, &c. With 
Descriptive Text. By Doyne C. Bell. With 24 Plates. Folio. 12?. 12*. 
(Prince) Speeches and Addresses with an In- 
troduction, giving some outline of his Character. With Portrait. 8vo. 
10s. 6c?. ; or Popular Edition, fcap. 8vo. Is. 

ALBERT DURER; his Life and Works. By Dr. Thausing, 
Keeper of Archduke Albert's Art Collection at Vienna. Translated 
from the German. With Portrait Illustrations. Medium 8vo. 

[In the Press 

ABBOTT'S (Ret. J.) Memoirs of a Church of England Missionary" 
in the North American Colonies. Post 8vo. 2s. 

ABERCROMBIE'S (John) Enquiries concerning the Intellectual 

Powers and the Investigation of Truth. Fcap. 8vo. 3s. 6c?. 

Philosophy of the Moral Peelings. Fcap. 8yo. 

2s. 6c?. 

ACLAND'S (Rev. Charles) Popular Account of the Manners and 

Customs of India. Post 8vo. 2s. 

jESOP'S FABLES, A New Yersion. With Historical Preface. 

By Rev. Thomas James. With 100 Woodcuts, by Tenniel and Wolf. 
Post 8vo. 2s. 6c?. 

AGRICULTURAL (Royal) JOURNAL. {Published half yearly.) 
AIDS TO FAITH : a Series of Theological Essays. 8vo. 9s. 

CONTENTS. 

Miracles Dean Mansel. 

Evidences of Christianity . . . Bishop Fitzgerald. 

Prophecy & Mosaic Record of Creation . Dr. McCaul. 

Ideology and Subscription . . . Canon Cook. 

The Pentateuch Canon Rawlinson. 

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PUBLISHED BY MR. MURRAY. 29 



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